Chris and Patti Larson, owners of Lisciandro’s Restaurant, which will be opening to the public again starting Monday. Submitted photo

After temporarily closing earlier this year, a community staple will be opening its doors to the public again with a soft opening Monday morning.

Chris and Patti Larson had to close Lisciandro’s Restaurant — located at 207 N. Main St. — earlier this year while Patti recovered from the removal of a tumor. After about six months, they are returning to their restaurant on Monday from 7 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Offerings will include a warm case with a variety of breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos, brownies, muffins, cookies, toast, English muffins, coffee, tea, juices and bottles of soda. The same hours are set from Monday to Friday for the first week and then Monday through Wednesday the following two weeks, with the hope to be back to full hours starting January 4. They will also be closed on Wednesdays starting January 4.

“Patti is doing pretty good,” Chris Larson said. “She still gets tired pretty easily but she’s doing more and more it seems like, every day. She doesn’t have to go back to Roswell until September of next year. She’s been walking the dogs, doing a little more stuff, and working at the restaurant getting ready for our soft opening.”

Larson expressed that Patti is “scared but excited” for the opening, and that he is not worried at all because he knows she can handle it. He added that if they feel she is not ready to go back to full hours on Jan. 4 they will extend the soft opening hours another week or two until they feel she is ready, and they will also try to have enough people on hand for her to not have to do everything like she used to.

Larson said as far as Monday goes, he has a feeling it will be crazy, but seeing people again will make Patti happy.

“It’s been almost six months since we had to close down, so it’s been quite a while,” Larson said. “She misses all of her friends, customers, which like I said before are like family to us. Hopefully it will show her how much she’s ready to let somebody else do some stuff too, because I know that’s going to be hard for her.”

The community support that the Larsons have received over the last few months has been “incredible” and something Larson said is hard to put into words. He said so many people showed up at the fundraiser by Rand Machine a few months ago that there was a line around the block and some had to be turned away, and they have also been receiving multiple letters and cards over that time as well.

“I don’t know what we would’ve done without all of the help,” Larson said. “I don’t know if we would’ve been able to make it back open, so it’s really kind of a lifesaver for us.”

Additionally, at the fundraiser Larson said he was surprised to find how many people that showed up that they knew. Upon opening again, he said they want to continue to be able to be there for their community.

“We’re going to be here for them like they were for us,” Larson said. “We’re going to do whatever we can to help a bunch of people. We tried to do it a lot before but I think we’re going to try and do more now because of all this. We can’t thank them enough and this has been the best bad thing that ever happened to us. It’s finally made us slow down and try and look at life a little differently now.”