It’s a Tuesday morning at the Omelette Parlor.

Dishes clink and silverware clank. It smells of bacon and eggs and pancakes and butter.

Servers bustle from kitchen to table. Hungry guests crowd at the hostess station, while stuffed diners exit holding white to-go boxes.

Outside, customers patiently wait to hear their name.

“We do have a ton of repeat customers. But I think you’d be surprised, even I am — it surprises me how many new customers we get on a daily basis that have just heard about us,” said Susan Whitlock, the general manager of the restaurant.

Whitlock has worked at the Omelette Parlor since 1989, a few years after it opened as part of the Western chain restaurant. The Colorado Springs’ location was bought out in 1993, becoming independent following the closure of most other branches of the chain. Now, it’s the only Omelette Parlor in the country.

The eatery, with its iconic green-and-white paint job, still uses some of the original recipes from all those years ago, while also keeping the original hardwood floors and wooden booths. Why? It works.

“I just think we’re a real staple here,” Whitlock said. “People ask all the time, ‘You should expand. Why don’t you? Why is this the only one?’ Well, I think this is the only one. It has the charm and character we would never be able to replace. … I don’t think it’d be the same.”

As far as dishes, the green chili has been popular since the restaurant opened. Over the years, the Omelette Parlor has won several awards, including ranking in The Gazette’s Best of the Springs for its breakfast, pancakes, green chili and huevos rancheros.

The restaurant also pays homage to the city, with omelettes named after The Broadmoor, Gen. William J. Palmer and Black Forest.

“We have a homemade pork green chili, and that’s a real favorite. We have fresh squeezed orange juice that we squeeze all day — that’s popular. And we have a thick-cut bacon,” Whitlock said of the restaurant’s most popular menu items.

It’s not just the plates that keep people coming back. Whitlock said the service from the wait staff is truly something special.

“I think a lot of it is the staff,” she said. “The staff that I’ve had, we’ve all been together for years. Not only is our food good, but I just feel like they (customers) get to know the staff. I don’t have a lot of turnover.”

The retention of staff is important to any local spot, and the Omelette Parlor is no different. Whitlock credits the retention in part to the restaurant’s early hours.

“Good management. I have to pat myself on the back,” Whitlock joked. “I’m being silly with that, but we’ve got great hours. I have a lot of moms, because they can get their kids to school. We close at 1:30 in the afternoon, they can pick them up from school, they can have dinner with them. So I think morning hours is a perk.”

Set in the former home of singer and actress Ruth Etting, the building has quite a history, built in 1893. The movie star and her husband turned it into restaurant known as the T-Bone Club, which eventually became the Hackney House. In the early ’80s, the building became the Omelette Parlor. And 40 years later, although it’s a bustling business, it seems more a home to its customers and staff alike.

“We get to know all of our customers. We really get to know them,” Whitlock said. “We’ve watched our customers get married and then get pregnant and then have their kids and then have their kids go off to college. I mean, so many of us have been here that long that we’ve watched families grow. So I think that’s really special.”