For the past 19 years, Lawrence-area diners have been able to create their own culinary combinations — everything from roast beef and mashed potatoes to spaghetti and nachos — at Furr’s Family Dining.

But the days of overfilling a buffet plate with three different types of potatoes are over.

Furr’s, 2300 Iowa, closed its doors for good Tuesday afternoon. Don Davis, general manager, said Furr’s was the last nonspeciality restaurant in Lawrence that offered a daily buffet.

“There is no other true buffet cafeteria concept in town other than the Chinese buffets,” Davis said. “It is a shame because it was a type of dining that suited a lot of people.”

But Furr’s main customer base was senior citizens and families, Davis said. The national economic downturn has hit those two sectors of the population especially hard, he said, and that spelled decreasing sales for the buffet.

“With this economy, people in general are just eating out less, but money is really tight for our base group of customers,” Davis said.

Tight economies particularly can be tough for buffet-style restaurants, Davis said, because unlike traditional restaurants, buffets have to produce a certain amount of food each day regardless of whether customers come through the door.

“It always has been a very tough, low-margin business, and that’s probably why there aren’t any others in town,” Davis said. “But I imagine in time there will be another one come around, but it will have to have really high volumes to survive.”

Erin DuBois-Hefner, Lawrence, has fond memories of working as a chef at Furr's Family Dining, 23rd and Iowa streets. After 19 years in business, Furr's closed its doors Tuesday.

The Lawrence restaurant was located near one of the busiest intersections in town, on the southeast corner of 23rd and Iowa streets. But Davis said the traffic wasn’t enough to compete with a slew of new restaurants that have opened in the past five years.

“When you have this much competition in a town this size, it makes it tough for everybody,” Davis said. “The restaurants have outgrown the population, but I suppose it will even out in time.”

The company, which has about 90 restaurants across the country, employed about 40 people in Lawrence.

Davis said he knew of no immediate plans for a new tenant to move into the building.

Allison Vance Moore, a commercial real estate agent with Grubb & Ellis/The Winbury Group, said she expected a lot of interest in redeveloping the 2.7-acre tract of ground.

“That is a great corner,” Moore said. “It is one of the highest traffic intersections in Lawrence.”

Moore said developers, even before the announcement of the closing, had been expressing an interest in the property as a location for various types of free-standing retail stores.

“I think everybody has kind of known that Furr’s wasn’t the highest and best use for that intersection,” Moore said. “My guess is that we’ll see something quite a bit more exciting on that property.”

When the property may be redeveloped is questionable.

Moore said contacts at Furr’s corporate offices told her the property could get tied up in the bankruptcy proceeding of Kmart Corp. Kmart leases the site of the Lawrence restaurant from a Texas real estate company. Kmart then subleases the property to Furr’s, which Kmart owned in the 1980s.

Kmart’s bankruptcy proceedings are expected to last until July 2003.