How sweet it is in an area well saturated with restaurant chains to find places owned by local families who provide friendly service as well as good food.
We patronize the chains and have our favorites, but we also are thankful for the old familiar places with hometown flavor that have been part of the landscape for many years. These are the kinds of places where we know the owners, the wait staff, and the regular customers. The longtime experienced employees, from the dining room to the kitchen, are a definite bonus in the local eateries.
Don’t take my word for it. Ask your waiters how many years they have worked in the same place. When I asked that question in each of the four following restaurants, the answers ranged from 10 to 16 years.
Dino’s Family Restaurant
Dino’s Family Restaurant on the Anthony Wayne Trail in the Golden Gate Shopping Center in Maumee is an excellent example of a longtime local restaurant that continues to serve a full house of appreciative customers. Dino and Yanna Yakumithis and their longtime staff are open for breakfast through 7 p.m. every day but Wednesdays.
Having been there for breakfast three times recently, I can say unequivocally that Dino’s is a happy place to start the day. The wait staff is cordial, strangers say good morning, and the coffee cup is kept full.
Though Dino’s is open through the dinner hour, breakfast attracts the most customers. Dino and Yanna are particularly pleased that many of their customers have made friends, and because of that there are four different groups that meet regularly in friendship as well as for breakfast.
The breakfast menu runs the gamut, but Yanna prepares the daily specials that customers have come to expect.
The beef and noodles, featured on Mondays, sells fast. Customers rave about Yanna’s macaroni and cheese. Dino’s also serves chili mac, that old Toledo favorite that is spooned over spaghetti.
Original Pancake House
Remember when the Original Pancake House opened in the Westgate shopping district, and plain old Aunt Jemima’s pancakes were put on the back burner? The excitement of the Original was seeing and believing the German pancake and figuring out how to eat it.
That was in 1976, which makes it one of Toledo’s oldest restaurants operating in the same location.
Jim and Becky Cowan, the present owners, give the large dining rooms a homespun flavor with decorations. They even have a small gift shop, but the most important thing to me is that they honor the original recipe, and that includes the German pancake.
I had to have one, of course.
That same mega pancake experience is still on the marquee in the same location along with a long list of other breakfast and lunch choices.
The German pancake is a one of a kind with the batter rising high and wide to cover and overlap a 12-inch dinner plate. After ooh-ing and ahh-ing about the size and the powdered sugar sprinkled into the deep cavity, the next move is to squeeze fresh lemon over the sugar.
I am not the only one who likes the big cake enough to pay $12.95 for one. More than 100 German pancakes are made and devoured each day.
Hill Family Restaurant and Steakhouse
Some of the rules posted at the entrance to the Hill Family Restaurant and Steakhouse in Napoleon are from the state of Ohio regarding coronavirus. The rest are suggestions from the owners, Guy and Kim Hill.
Guy and Kim have operated the homey restaurant in downtown Napoleon for more than 30 years, and have one answer that explains why they have stuck it out through thick and thin: “We love our customers,” Kim says,
Three egg omelets lead the breakfast menu parade at Hill’s, but come dinnertime, ribeye steak dinners take precedence. The two daily specials include beef and noodles on Mondays and a fish fry on Fridays.
Here is the list of rules I couldn’t resist copying:
■ If you’re sick, stay home.
■ If we are full, you must wait outside.
■ Must sit in seats, no running around.
■ Keep your feet on the floor at all times.
■ Take your tissues with you.
■ Ask for things, do not help yourself.
■ If we are busy, you must not stay long.
■ Ask for your condiments when ordering.
Hill’s is closed on Sundays, but open other days for breakfast until 7 p.m.
Tip Top Restaurant
Each time that I get comfortable in one of the four high-backed booths at the Tip Top Restaurant in Adrian, it’s a trip down memory lane.
The Tip Top dates back to 1938 and hasn’t missed a beat in my favorite restaurant book since. New owners with new ideas have been added through the years, but otherwise it is as we old-timers remember: a friendly staff eager to make customers happy.
The owners now have a sweet story to tell. Meagan Skampo bought the restaurant so that her mother and sister could be a part of the business and her dream. All three have impressive backgrounds in the food service industry. Meagan’s mother, Julie Iott, is the grill cook, a position she is well experienced in and still enjoys. Her sister, Erin Iott, does all the homestyle baking, including many kinds of cakes and pies. Coconut cream pie and chocolate fudge cake are popular.
Meagan, Julie, and Erin offer an extensive menu of hot foods, including homemade soups and chili, but I always order the Tip Top hamburger, just as I did when I walked there from Lincoln School for lunch years ago.
The difference in the Tip Top is that the dressing is a thick layer of sliced green olives and mayo spread on both halves of the bun. It doesn’t taste the same when I make a Tip Top at home.
On West Maumee Street in Adrian, the Tip Top is closed on Sundays, but open every other day for breakfast and lunch until 2 p.m.
Mary Alice Powell is a retired Blade food editor. Contact her at poseypowell@aol.com.
First Published October 8, 2022, 12:30 p.m.
