By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

BIRD CITY -- Failing all else, you can find Big Ed's Steakhouse and Lounge by using its longitude and latitude coordinates: 39.686 and 101.569. The coordinates are posted on the sign on the front of the building.

Or, you can follow the aroma of perfectly cooked steaks, which coincidentally are individually cut fresh from a larger slab of meat, but only after individual orders are sent to the cook.

The simplest way, however, would be to head northwest to Bird City -- population 407. Big Ed's, one of the 8 Wonders of Northwest Kansas Cuisine voted on in a Hays Daily News contest, is located in downtown Bird City.

It's the place with all the cars parked out front. Hours are 5 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. They are closed Sundays.

To be sure, it's 182 miles from Hays to Bird City, nestled along the south side of U.S. Highway 36 in Cheyenne County, but the food is well worth the drive.

Big Ed's is a time-honored restaurant in Bird City. It was created by Ed Thomas, who, as you might guess, was quite tall, hence the Big Ed's name given to the restaurant.

Eventually, Big Ed sold the restaurant to Dick Upchurch, who kept the name. Upchurch moved back to Kiowa, Colo., where he opened a similar restaurant, and sold Bird City to its current owners, Robert and Sherry Cherry. Their daughter, Shayla Cherry devotes her waking days to Big Ed's as its manager.

The Cherrys hail from Colorado, by way of southern Florida of all places.

When her folks retired, they headed to southern Florida, where she managed a swimming pool company for her father. Her mom and dad spent plenty of time out on a boat.

But it was too much of a good thing, and simply too many people.

So they opted to purchase Big Ed's, moving to the countryside half-way between Goodland and Bird City.

Robert Cherry, his daughter said, had been familiar with Big Ed's for quite some time.

"He ate at Big Ed's every year," she said, during his trips into Kansas for pheasant season.

Shayla Cherry doesn't regret the move from people-packed southern Florida to the sparsely settled Cheyenne County area at all.

"Oh gosh no," she said. "I wish we would have done it sooner. I love it here. It's a nice fit."

She keeps busy with the restaurant, spending her time there.

Shayla Cherry has been at Big Ed's since 2007.

"The people are so friendly," she said.

Big Ed's, she said, is a steak house.

"If you don't get a steak, the only other thing on the menu is fried," she said. "Steak, salad and potato or something deep-fried."

What makes the restaurant unique, she said, is steaks are cut from the loin when they are ordered. They are then seasoned with a special seasoning and cooked right out in the open where anyone can watch. And people do watch.

On average, anywhere from 75 to 100 people show up each night at Big Ed's to eat.

Weekends, there might be as many as 200.

"They come from Denver, from eastern Kansas," she said. "We've had people fly in."

To be sure, Shayla Cherry suspects out-of-towners have another reason for being in the area.

"They're from everywhere," she said.

Some simply plop down in front of the grill to watch the grillmaster, Katie Parch, work her magic on the steaks in front of her.

She gauges how the steaks are cooked by touch, pushing on them to see how firm they are.

On weekends, Cherry said, Parch will have the grill covered with steaks, which means her focus is there.

"She has a road map of the grill in her head," she said.