DOWAGIAC — Hanging up in front of the cook’s counter at Railway Café is a special menu. It is not gluten-free, vegan or any other dining trends. It is a menu specifically for police officers, listing 10 meals, at the discounted price of $5 — with coffee.

Railway Café, 109 W. Railroad St., Dowagiac is owned by Larry Stacks. A year ago, his girlfriend, Nicole Tienda, created the Officers in Uniform discount menu to show an appreciation for law enforcement, Tienda said.

“I was thinking about it last year, and I was like, ‘what can we do to give back, because [the officers] are always out there and they are always busy?’” Tienda said. “I always tease them. They hate it when I say, ‘hope you’re busy today,’ but it’s just our joke.”

The restaurant already gets a fair amount of business from the Dowagiac Police Department, the Pokagon Tribal Police Department, Cass County Sheriff’s Department and Cass County corrections officers, Tienda said.

“They all said that I did not have to do it for them, because they would come in no matter what,” Tienda said. “They love the food, but when [officers] are getting off of work or just starting their day, some quick and easy food is great.”

Tienda said the restaurant has already received a thank-you from many of their regular customers, who happen to also be officers.

“Last week, we had a couple sitting at the counter and [the man] was an officer,” Tienda said. “He said [the menu] was something that was really nice that we had done.”

Michigan police officers are not the only police who visited Railway Café. One man came into Railway Café on his way back to Chicago. It turned out the man was a retired police officer, she said.

“He came in here and said, ‘you don’t get to see this often anywhere else,’” Tienda said.

The man asked Tienda for a menu so he could bring back the idea to a local Chicago restaurant. A lot of officers go there, the man told her.

“He was going to make a suggestion to hint to them that they could do something like this,” Tienda said.

Tienda herself has an attachment to the law enforcement profession. Her grandfather was a Chicago police officer.

Tienda plans on continuing to offer the special to show support for the community’s officers.

“Dowagiac is the number one police station, but this is a tourist town so we get people from Chicago that come in here,” Tienda said. “Once you get to know people, they see our signs. Every time an officer comes in here, we always put down one of those menus.”