BY HANNAH LESTER
HLESTER@OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
AUBURN —
Odds are, if you live in Auburn, you’ve eaten at Niffer’s Place.
Keely Beasecker, owner of Niffer’s, has lived in Auburn since the ’70s, when she came to Auburn University as part of the swim team.
“Got here, fell in love with it,” she said.
Now, Beasecker’s plan was originally to go back to California and work in law enforcement. But, Auburn had its way once again and she’s been living here for years.
“The restaurant business fell in my lap,” she said. “I started with Quincey’s Steakhouse here, back in the ’80s, so in ’81, and was with them for eight years, and fell in love with the business. [I] thought, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’”
Now, Beasecker said she thought that if she was going to stay in the restaurant business, she’d do better to own her own place.
“We opened Niffer’s up in ’91 and that’s kind of how it’s taken off,” she said.
The irony is that Beasecker wasn’t much of a chef at the time.
“It’s funny because my mom would always die that I was in the restaurant business, because I couldn’t even boil water,” she said.
Of course, Beasecker said she can now boil water. She cooks quite a bit at work, given it is a restaurant, after all.
But it’s not just a restaurant, she said, but a “people business.”
“People come here to have experiences and celebrations, and sometimes they come because [they had] a bad day or whatever, and I fell in love with it, and I thought, ‘This is like a party every day,’” Beasecker said.
Niffer’s grew from one restaurant in Auburn to include one in Opelika and one at Lake Martin.
Beasecker was a recent recipient of one of Auburn Mayor Ron Anders’ Lamplighter awards. Each year Anders acknowledges the work of a few Auburn residents during his State of the City address.
Typically, these awards are presented as a surprise to the recipients, who have no idea of the real reason they are at the State of the City address.
This year, Anders awarded six Lamplighter awards. Beasecker received one of these.
Beasecker said that her partner, Deena, invited her to the State of the City, saying she had to attend since she was on a city board and asking Beasecker to go with her.
Beasecker said it’s a good thing she didn’t know about the award beforehand or she might not have attended adding that she isn’t big on that kind of attention.
“It was a very nice award and I’m glad that I went, now,” she said. “… It was a very nice honor to receive that.”
Beasecker said that her mom, who has passed, was her best friend, and she knew she was looking down on her, proudly.
There have been challenges over the 31 years of business, Beasecker said, such as COVID or staffing challenges now. However, there is always room to grow and continue plugging ahead.
“We have a goal in our restaurant, and with my management team … if we improve 1% every day, we’re all right,” she said.
Niffer’s in Auburn is located at 1151 Opelika Road in Auburn, at 917 S. Railroad Ave., in Opelika and at Lake Martin, 7500 AL-49 in Dadeville.