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Barbara Hunn Petersen opened her new 160-seat restaurant in Roseville the Friday before Labor Day, a seemingly unpropitious bit of timing considering the tendency folks have to head out of town on the last holiday weekend of the summer. There was no fanfare, no advertising, no grand-opening hoopla. "We just turned on the `Open' sign and unlocked the door,"said Petersen, 51

Whereupon a four-day marathon ensued

Customers began streaming in to the restaurant on Lexington Pkwy. and Larpenteur Av. shortly after the 6 a.m. opening, and by 8 a.m. the place was full

And it stayed pretty well full for all three meals through the next four days, a development that kept Petersen, her four children and two sons-in-law hopping through 12- to 17-hour days as they labored to train the staff and shake out all the glitches. She even shanghaied her sales executive husband, Jim, and her 71-year-old mother, MargueriteBova, to pitch in

By the time the weekend was over the place had gone through 300 pounds of turkey, 160 pounds of roast beef and 250 pounds of hamburger

The four-day take: close to $18,000

It was, in short, business as usual for the Keys Restaurant chain, a financial and gastronomic phenomenon that has generated an army of fiercely loyal, undoubtedly somewhat overweight Twin Cities customers in the last 15 years

Consider: The four Keys restaurants that were operating in 1988 did about a $1.5 million volume, a figure that becomes even more impressive when you consider that two of the stores are open only for breakfast and lunch

There are several elements behind the success, one of which is best illustrated by recounting how I fell off my diet with a thud the first time I confronted a Keys restaurant, this one the emporium on Raymond Av. near University Av. in St. Paul

I had the best of intentions, I swear. In fact, with the diet in mind, I ordered the short stack of pancakes. Some short stack: There were just two pancakes, all right, but they were about the size of manhole covers, each of them measuring approximately an inch in thickness

Contrary to my father's rather inelegant adage - "better belly bust than food waste" - I left behind about a third of the short stack, which still amounted to enough pancake to make up a full order at most of the restaurants I frequent

The tab: $2.50

It could have been worse. I could have succumbed to the $1.25 homemade caramel roll, which is about the size of a bowling ball. Or I might have shelled out a buck for a freshly made cookie that would cover your average salad plate. Or have thrown caution to the winds and paid $1.95 for an order of hash browns that arrives separately on a king-sized platter

That's one of the secrets for Petersen's success: Across the menu, she offers imposing portions at moderate prices, all of which adds up to what I call "value." For example, the most expensive item on the dinner menu at the three locations that are open at that hour is grilled salmon, which is billed modestly as "wonderful" and goes for $6.95

Not only that, everything is made from scratch: the breads and the pastries, the soups and sauces, the potatoes and gravies. No canned or frozen foods, no portion-controlled helpings

"You won't find an open can in any of my kitchens," Petersen boasted. I am forced to report, however, that she was ordering out for at least one item: There was trouble with the potato peeler at the Lexington Pkwy. store, so she was buying fresh potatoes already peeled

There's a simple explanation for her decision to prepare her foods from scratch: "It's the only way I know how to cook," Petersen said. "And it's the way I like (food) prepared." The home-cooking style "absolutely" is a more expensive process that takes a fair-sized bite out of her profit margins, she conceded. "But I don't need to make a million dollars; I can pretty much buy whatever I want the way it is." Nevertheless, all of her restaurants are profitable, including the recently opened Lexington location

The chef responsible for this tasty entrepreneurial recipe is an energetic woman who professes to be unable to stay home with nothing to do because it tends to make her sick

Indeed, when Petersen quit working as a licensed practical nurse to raise her son and three daughters, she worked at a variety of odd jobs ranging from cleaning houses to cutting hair to cooking at a church summer camp. After the kids were older she spent several years clerking in a hardware store during the winter and managing a Dairy Queen in the summer

Then, in 1974, the woman who owned the Dairy Queen came up with a proposition: A 100-seat restaurant on Raymond Av. called Mr. D's was for sale. She had the capital to buy it, and Petersen clearly had the energy and capacity to run it. How about a partnership? The name came just as easily to Petersen: "My partner was heading for a vacation in the Florida Keys, and that sounded like paradise to me." The Raymond Av. restaurant - the "Keys Original," as it's called on the menu - was a surprising success, drawing a diverse crowd that on any given morning will range from pinstripes to hard hats and, on occasion, from wrestlers to politicians. It was so successful, in fact, that Petersen didn't even consider opening another restaurant

But then it became apparent that her daughter Jean Hunn was too accomplished to continue working in her mother's shadow at the Raymond Av. store. Hunn, now 29, is an ambitious, independent woman with "a good business sense," her mother said, "and we started bumping into each other" at the Keys Original

So, using accumulated profits from the Raymond Av. location, Petersen in 1983 bought a 75-seat restaurant in New Brighton, added another 55 seats a year later, and turned it over to Jean

That's been the pattern ever since: Whenever a family member felt ready to join the business, Petersen bought another restaurant, usually without having to borrow a dime
She opened two more Keys in 1987, a 130-seat restaurant in downtown St. Paul and a 160-seat unit in Brooklyn Park, which are run by her daughter, Carol Pace, 30, and her son-in-law, Rick Pace, 34

And now there's the Lexington, for which she borrowed $30,000 for equipment and furnishings. The general manager is Brian Carlson, 33, Petersen's son-in-law, and the night manager is her son, Roy Hunn, who also is her assistant manager at the Raymond Av. unit

Petersen's third daughter, Celine Carlson, 28, also is helping out in Roseville, but only temporarily. She was running the downtown St. Paul unit until recently but decided to retire to raise a family

With all of her children fully occupied with the existing Keys restaurants, you might think that Petersen is through expanding the chain

But I spotted one of her grandchildren, a lad of 15, slicing tomatoes in the kitchen of the Lexington Av. restaurant the other day, so I wouldn't rule out a new round of expansion in a few years.

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