Six days a week, Michael Flynn flips on the kitchen lights in Manitou’s tiny Dutch Kitchen at about 6 a.m. and starts rolling out homemade pie dough.

By lunch, his fresh creations are cooling in the pantry, and the small white board that servers hand to customers while asking, “Did you save room?” is crammed with a list of delights: rhubarb crumble, honey-glazed blackberry-cherry, fresh strawberry cream, peach almondien, pecan chocolate and The Dutch Kitchen’s signature slice, buttermilk.

The Dutch Kitchen is Manitou’s oldest family restaurant. It has been 50 years since Flynn’s parents bought the place (and 60 since it originally opened).

“We haven’t really changed a whole lot. I still make the pies every day,” said Flynn during a recent lunch rush as he watched a fleet of sandwiches crisping on his grill. “That’s why people keep coming back. They like it the way it is.”

Flynn has held onto many of his parents’ quirky traditions. The cash register is older than most customers; Flynn rings an old bell when orders are up, like his dad did; and the restaurant is still closed Fridays  — a practice that dates to when Flynn and his brother played high school basketball and football, and the parents decided to take the day off to go to the games.

The interior is old, knotty pine paneling with dim wall lamps and cozy booths from the era before so many Americans were supersized. And even though the room is decorated with windmills and little wooden shoes evoking Holland, the Dutch Kitchen does not have Dutch food. It serves mostly East Coast-style deli sandwiches. The name is from the guy, whose nickname was “Dutch,” who owned the Dutch Kitchen before the Flynns did. He, too, served deli sandwiches. As a yellowing 1949 ad tacked to the wall says, “Kosher corned beef, fancy cheeses, kosher dill pickles.”

The old school family place also has a dose of Manitou quirk. It is closed in winter. It takes only cash. And the requisite Charles Rockey landscape print hangs in the dining room.

There is a reason the sandwiches have stuck around so long. They are classically delicious and, under the skillful spatula of Flynn, artfully assembled.

Take the Dutch Diplomat ($8.35), a triple-decker sandwich with turkey, ham, good Swiss cheese and cool, crispy coleslaw, all pressed and grilled until the bread is little more than a light, crackly shell, yet, somehow, not the slightest bit greasy. It’s terrific.

The Dutch Treat ($7.95) — ham, American cheese and the Kitchen’s unique cabbage chutney on rye — shows the same deft deliciousness.Anne Christensen, the last Gazette critic to review the Kitchen, said in 1997 that while the sandwiches were very good, she would give only three stars because “even a very good sandwich is not difficult to make.” But I’ve eaten a lot of bad Reubens, where the meat is greasy, the bread is oily, the cheese is overbearing, or liquid oozes from the ’kraut, making the whole thing a soggy mess. To take a bite of the Kitchen’s Reuben ($8.35) is to experience a perfectly proportioned sandwich.

“It’s not fancy,” a friend said as she took a bite. “It’s just tasty.”

Other things are good but not great. The enchiladas ($9.75) are fresh, from scratch and enticing, but a bit on the tame side. The tomato-noodle soup tastes like SpaghettiOs.

Our only real complaint is that the sandwich prices have almost doubled since Christensen was here. The Kitchen is not quite the deal it used to be.

But seriously, save room for dessert.

The pie ($3.75) has an impossibly flaky, delectable crust. And the insides ain’t bad either. The rhubarb is tangy with thick, fresh chunks of the stalk, cooked until tender, the sour notes tempered by sweet vanilla ice cream. The blackberry-cherry steers clear of the cornstarch goop you get in most cherry pies; it’s buttery as well as tart. The chocolate-pecan is dense and rich. The strawberry has fresh berries sliced in half and covered in whipped cream. The banana cream is the real, unadulterated thing.

The simplest, and one of the best, is the buttermilk. It’s an obscure recipe Flynn’s dad cooked for decades. The flaky crust is filled with a sweet, lemony custard and baked until the filling is slightly firm and spongy. The whole thing has the taste and pliancy of a really fantastic, fresh sugar cookie.

The Dutch Kitchen5 stars (an institution)Address: 1025 Manitou Ave., Manitou SpringsPhone: 719-685-9962Hours: 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. and 4:30-8 p.m. Saturdays-Thursdays; closed Fridays.Entrees: $6.75-$12.75Vegetarian: soups, sandwiches and pieLiquor: beerCredit cards: no, it’s Manitou

Owner and operator, Michael Flynn, of The Dutch Kitchen holds a pose for a portrait in the restaurant’s kitchen Sunday morning in Manitou Springs, Co., July 5, 2009. The restaurant is known to have terrific pies. Photo by COLE EBERLE