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The Hartville Kitchen had its beginnings as a small lunch stand on the side of Hartville Livestock Auction started in 1939 by Sol Miller. Sol was a farmer and very much interested in livestock. He also wanted to be an auctioneer, and had a lifelong dream of having his own livestock auction. In the fall of 1939, Sol bought a two-acre plot of land at the corner of Market Avenue and Edison Street for $400.00. With a lot of help from the community, Sol built a 30x80 wooden building out of lumber cut from his father's farm. Only two men were paid for their labor and their rate was .39 cents an hour. The total cost of the building came to under $1,000.00. This first building housed a few cattle pens and an arena. The first sale took place on October 30, 1939 and brought in $535.00. The weekly auction drew many people from the Hartville area and surrounding communities so Sol opened a small lunch stand and his wife Soloma prepared and sold food to the people that gathered every Monday.
In 1942, Sol built the first addition to the auction building, adding more cattle pens, hog pens and office space. At this time, the lunch stand was moved to the second story above the auction arena. In 1947, more space was added to the west end of the building, expanding the lunch stand and offices. As the livestock auction continued to bring in more and more people, Sol began an egg auction and started renting spots outside of the sale barn for people to set up and sell their wares. This was the beginning of Hartville Flea Market.
In 1951, a second addition was built. Sol opened a grocery store called Miller's Golden Dawn and a Sunoco gas and service station on the north side of the sale barn. Sol's oldest son, Howard, operated these businesses and three years later Howard was able to expand the grocery store and build indoor restrooms.
In 1958, Sol Miller passed away and Howard along with Moses Yoder leased and operated the auction for Soloma until 1962 when Howard bought the businesses from his mother and family. Howard then converted Miller's Golden Dawn into a dry goods store and moved the Sunoco station to the west side of the building. He opened up a coin shop where the old service station had been, and ran the coin shop until he took in James Gray as a partner later that year. Three years later Howard sold the business to James and later James sold it to Dick Frost who owns and operates Hartville Coin & Jewelry at its present location.
In 1966, the Health Department told Howard that he could no longer operate a lunch stand above a livestock auction. Howard decided to close the dry goods store and open a restaurant. On Tuesday, March 4, 1966, the Country Kitchen was opened with the idea that if business was not good, they would only stay open on auction days. By that weekend, however, people were lined up to eat at the new restaurant and the it has been running ever since. That first year, the restaurant was open from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. The dining room seated 75 people, including a serving counter, and all meals were $1.00 except shrimp, which was $1.25. The menu included much of the current choices, with the addition of fried mush, grits, and liver pudding. Howard's wife Sarah was the cook, the dishwasher, and did pretty much everything else that went along with running a restaurant. Howard's mother Soloma made all the pies from her kitchen at home and they were brought over to the restaurant in a pie carrier.
In 1967, Howard closed the livestock auction and expanded the restaurant into the space that once housed the auction. Seating in the dining room increased to 175, a pie and waiting room was added, the egg auction was expanded and the livestock arena was converted into a gym for the neighborhood kids.
In 1970, the gas station was moved out of the existing building and a new Amoco station was built on the adjacent corner of Market Avenue and Edison Street. The Coin Shop also moved to the east end of the Restaurant, making room for a serving kitchen and enough seats to house 282 diners.
Soon after this, Howard and his son-in-law, Vernon Sommers were at a show in Chicago and they bought a number of wall clocks. They put the clocks on display in the waiting room. The clocks sold so well that they decided to make then a permanent part of the restaurant and started selling grandfather clocks as well. In 1973, with a Hummel case, an assortment of Fenton glass, and other collectibles, Hartville Collectibles was begun and it has been a part of the Hartville Kitchen ever since.
The Flea Market and Country Kitchen continued to grow, and by 1975, the Flea Market was setting up 1,200 vendors on peak days, and the restaurant served 400,000 in a single year. By this time, Howard's family had become a big part of the operation of his businesses. His son-in-law Vernon was managing the restaurant and Collectibles. His oldest son, Howard Jr. was managing Hartville True Value which Howard had bought in 1974 and all of his children were involved in making the businesses work.
In 1976, Howard and his family decided to close down the egg auction. The final auction was held the last Monday in December. Part of the space for the egg auction was used to expand the Gift Shop to build new restrooms. The rest of the space was used for storage and offices.
In 1977, Bob Pawley approached Howard and his family, to see if they would be interested in mass producing and selling the Country Kitchen's salad dressings in grocery stores. The family decided to try it, and it was agreed that Bob would be the distributor for Country Kitchen Salad Dressings. Soon after this an automatic bottling line was set up, and they began bottling the dressing in pint jars to be sold.
In 1979, the Country Kitchen restaurant chain informed Howard that they had been a registered name in Ohio since 1939, and would have to change the name of the restaurant. So in 1979 it was decided that the Country Kitchen would change its name to the Hartville Kitchen.
As the Hartville Kitchen and Hartville Flea Market grew, Howard and his family started looking for a place where they could someday build a bigger restaurant and provide more room to expand the Flea Market. In 1980, the Coblentz farm, located only a quarter of a mile from the original Livestock auction building, came available. Howard bought the 63-acre farm with the hopes of building a new Hartville Kitchen and Collectibles in the near future.
The building of the new Hartville Kitchen, however, took more time to put into action than Howard initially thought. After much planning and time working out the details, the groundbreaking for the building took place in August 1993. Taking a little over two years to build, the Hartville Kitchen opened September 18, 1995. It now has 103,882 square feet, housing a dining room that seats 440, banquet rooms that can seat up to 500, a bakery and candy shop, the Hartville Collectibles, an art gallery and the Hartville Coin & Jewelry.
In 2001, Howard Sr. passed away, but Howard's family continues to run the Hartville Kitchen with the same standards of doing business that were instilled in Howard by his father when he lived out his lifelong dream over 60 years ago
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