On a sunny afternoon just after lunch hour, a young man wearing a T-shirt, corduroys and a blue baseball cap sat on the steps of a deli greeting people as they walk by.

Some of those people may not have realized the laid-back man sitting on the steps of the West Street Deli, 2810 West St., is the owner of the restaurant.

Jon Runner, 21, has owned and operated the deli for nearly three months. He also runs a catering business. After spending most of his teen-age years traveling on the road, he said he enjoys what he’s doing now.

“I just got real lucky,” he said. “I decided I wanted to do some cooking, and I ended up cooking in a sorority. I decided I wanted to run a catering business, and I ended up running a catering business. I decided I wanted to run a deli, and now I’m running a deli.”

Much of Runner’s life has been spent on the road, as the Ames native left for the traveling life at age 13.

“I didn’t graduate from high school, but I did get a GED. I got a lot of my education on the road,” he said. “Now I’m here doing exactly what I want to do and having fun doing it. I can afford to work without having much because I have everything I need here. I’ve got food, coffee and a great job.”

Runner said his time away from Ames lead him across the states.

“I’ve been pretty much everywhere on the West Coast, New Orleans, Florida — just a whole bunch of places,” he said.

Though he said he has too many stories about his experiences to tell them all, a few of them do stick out in his mind.

“I was with a group of people in Georgia, and there was a convenience store that let us rob them for 20 minutes,” he said with a laugh. “They saw that we were pretty poor and didn’t have much, so they gave us 20 minutes to just take whatever we wanted from the store.”

But one of his most memorable stories, he said, happened while he was hitchhiking to Ames from New Orleans. Runner and some friends were picked up by a couple who promised to give them a car if they’d help out around the house for a while.

“They kept us for a few days, making us do housework for them until they were happy with what we’d done,” he said. “Then they took us back to where they picked us up and left us there.”

As he said hello to yet another customer walking into the deli, Runner wove another one of his many stories — the reason he decided to get into the cooking business.

“We would travel around setting up a kitchen every night, and we did improv theater,” he said. “It was fun. We did live theater, and we gave people free food every night. That’s really what got me interested in cooking.”

Runner said he decided to come back to his hometown and open up a deli because he wanted “to bring a little bit of culture to Ames.”

“I wanted to open up a deli somewhere,” he said. “Ames doesn’t have a whole lot of culture. I wanted to bring in a restaurant where you pay attention to the customers and what they want.”

Runner also said he would like to see more independently owned businesses in Ames.

“There’s a lot of corporate ownership in Ames,” he said. “I would like to see more independent businesses where things are more personal.”

He also wanted to open a restaurant with a new philosophy — good food fast.

“I really wanted to have something different as far as quality of food,” he said. “I wanted a really high-quality fast food restaurant.”

Since opening West Street Deli in February, Runner said business has been good.

“We get a lot of college students, and we’re starting to get some professors, some high school students and some other people from the community,” he said. “I’m a little worried about what will happen this summer when everybody leaves, but we’ll see how it goes.”

Runner said he appreciates the support he has received from the community.

“The neighborhood and the community have been real great since we opened up,” he said. “There’s been a really positive response. Everyone wants it to stay around.”

West Street Deli employees said they enjoy working with Runner.

“John’s a good guy,” said employee Lindsay LePon, as she wiped off a counter in the restaurant. “He’s a fun employer, and he’s learning along with the rest of us. We’re all still pretty new at this.”

Mark Kochen, sophomore in art and another employee at the deli, said he also enjoys working for Runner.

“He’s a real nice guy,” he said. “He doesn’t ever breathe down your neck. He’s just real easy-going.”

As Runner got back to work inside the deli, he said his main motivation is serving customers with quality.

“Sometimes when you go to a restaurant, you don’t get a lot of attention,” he said. “The people working don’t care about the customers, and then they don’t care about the food.”

It is this personal attention that Runner said makes his restaurant special.

“We’ll have people come in and make a request for something, and a few days later, we’ll have it on the menu,” he said. “And we know what tastes good. If someone comes in and asks for something that won’t taste good, we’ll tell them what will.”

And if that’s not enough to lure in customers, Runner offers his own personal stamp of approval.

“I’ve been living off of sandwiches for the past three months, and I’m not sick of them yet,” he said with a laugh.