John Ridge admired the hamburgers at The Jug. He also wanted a good cup of coffee which he had trouble finding in Middletown.
Ridge, always on the lookout for a new project, bought The Jug and then opened his own coffee shop, Java Johnny’s Midtowne Cafe at the Highview Center.
Now, he is leaving the burger business after eight years when he can find someone to keep up the 70-year-old Middletown icon called The Jug.
Food, however, was not his specialty. The Internet is.
Ridge, a Middletown High School graduate who learned about business at The Ohio State University and by starting his own businesses, had an earlier passion and that was the cello, and while in high school performed with the Middletown Symphony Orchestra while honing skills on the piano.
At first, he thought about a career in music. “But I heard enough about bands and decided computers were my future,” he said. At Ohio State he studied economics, did some scuba diving and opened his first business, a landscaping operation that developed customers in upscale Upper Arlington.
He then went to work for a small computer outfit, where he was one of 20 employees, then started another business with a friend and partner which provided Internet services, then sold it in 1999.
While in Columbus, he met his wife, Jennifer, who worked at restaurant and she studied dermatology at the OSU School of Medicine before attending the medical school at Wright State University. When Jennifer took over the practice of Dr. Alvin Neimer here, they moved to Middletown.
It was on a visit to Middletown earlier that they went on a garden tour, which included the Gardner House on Gardner Place off Tytus Avenue, which became their home after buying it from owner Perry Thatcher.
“Until then, we had thought about moving to North Carolina,” Ridge said, “but Middletown is a good community and safe place to raise kids and we wanted a big family.” It’s a place where he plans to keep as his home base.
The Ridges got what they wanted not only in the house, where they have attempted to restore it over the past few years, but a large family since they have five children.
“We consider ourselves stewards since it is such a beautiful property,” he said of the Gardner House. “Anything we have done is in a restoration mode and we have tried to replace it with exactly what is there. And with a family of seven we use every square foot of it.”
His memories of the Gardner House go back to the days when he played the cello in high school and competed for a Valda Wilkerson String Scholarship when the competition was held there. “I remember thinking that it would be a neat place to live,” he said.
When Ridge sold his company to Voyager, he was 39 years old and he wasn’t ready to retire, so he formed a new company here which sells hardware and software to people who want to do their own e-line commerce.
It began when associates in New York City, who were working with arts groups there, asked if he could develop a system for ticket sales. He did all the ticketing for the Film Society of Lincoln Center which stages the New York Film Festival as well as groups in Cincinnati.
Both the DotCom crash and 9/11 hurt his business in New York and Ridge redeveloped things, concentrating on point of sale equipment which he also uses to track sales at both The Jug and Johnny Java’s, allowing him to know hourly sales at both businesses no matter where he is.
He also works with local groups like Lyric Theater and Rising Phoenix which he said couldn’t afford to be online fulltime with Ticketmaster. Instead, his company can handle ticket sales for them. He also works with Middfest and the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which occasionally helps book events.
Ridge sees opportunity in many places. Although he knew nothing about the food business, his acquisition of The Jug, a city institution for nearly 75 years, points out how his mind works.
“ One day I drove in and ordered a frosty mug of root beer and it was brought to me in a Styrofoam cup with the explanation that there wasn’t a mug for me,” he said. “It just wasn’t fulfilling my memory of The Jug and I thought it might need some help or that the owner was thinking about retiring.”
As luck would have it, Ridge said, owner Dick Henderson was thinking about retiring so he bought it. “I thought I could bring it back to the way I remembered it,” he said.
Ridge had the building gutted, put in a new kitchen, hooked it up to his computer systems and standardized the quality of the meat. “I saw something that could be fixed,” he said. And, of course, he bought 400 beer mugs to bring the tradition he recalled.
If and when he sells The Jug to someone who wants to keep up the tradition, he hopes to turn to other projects
“I see so many opportunities, so many things I’d like to do and I don’t want to be a spectator,” Ridge said.
(Some of the above article appeared earlier on MiddletownNow.com)
From the archives--The Meadows celebrates 75th anniversary
Mike Mandzak was like a lot of youngsters who wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he grew up.
Following after a father with the same name, who owned The Meadows, one of the area’s top watering holes and restaurants, really wasn’t on his mind after the younger Mandzak enrolled in the University of Miami (Florida). “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he admits.
While working for his dad on summer vacations meant doing odd jobs around the restaurant, washing dishes, dishing up vegetables and sweeping floors didn’t really make him feel like he wanted a career in his dad’s business.
And like a lot of his generation, young Mike didn’t finish college and instead joined the family business, something he felt was very temporary.
Now, 34 years later, the son has replaced his dad who was somewhat of a legend in the city, and he admits there are still times when he wonders what he wants to do.
“One day dad tossed me the keys and said it was mine and I could run it or I could sell it,” Mandzak recalls.
And The Meadows has been his ever since but there was a lot of trial and error in learning how to manage the restaurant. Today, he does it all—not much cooking, he admits, but he could prepare a few dishes—from ordering the food to helping bus the tables on a busy Friday or Saturday evening to mixing drinks when the clientele is particularly thirsty.
There are a lot of memories tied up the restaurant, Mandzak said. He has gotten to know many of the high rollers in the community over the years and like his father he makes sure that all his customers get special attention.
Gordon Lindsay, his second in command, has been with The Meadows for two decades. He and Mandzak go to great lengths to please their patrons. An examplel came very recently when Doug Fuller, an AK Steel Corp. representative called one morning from the Atlanta Airport to tell Mandzak that he would be coming to Middletown and asked that they save him a piece of his favorite pie for lunch.
And unless he’s busy assisting the kitchen, which has a staff of four including two cooks, or bartending young Mike makes the rounds of his customers, exchanging pleasantries with many that he knows well after all these years.
The Meadows began operation in 1934 when the senior Mandzak, who operated other well known places like the Horseshoe Bar, opened The Meadows across from Armco Steel Corp.’s Yankee Road gate, serving sandwiches and beer to steelworkers on their lunch break. It was not long after that the company executives came to lunch and dinner.
The Meadows began to move into local lore as the place to go for fine dining and good cheer and attracted more than just workers from across the street. It’s fame spread to area residents and there were visits from sports celebrities as well as out-of-towners looking for a good meal and spirits. It has been written about in restaurant periodicals and newspapers as a place to go.
The restaurant hasn’t changed much over the 70 years and still pretty much the same décor, except for lights over a collection of drawings that came from the old Sorg Mansion and a TV set behind the bar atop a mahogany cabinet built by the younger Mandzak.
The high backed booths, made of a richly colored mahogany, and soft music offer customers a semblance of privacy and sometimes it difficult to know who is sitting behind you.
The menu, except for prices, hasn’t changed all that much in the past few decades, although it does change daily. A glass of top scotch, which once retailed for 70 cents, of course, is more like $7, and a filet mignon dinner, which might have cost $2 is now about $20. Most meals, which include two vegetables and a salad, are moderately priced.
You can still get one of those sandwiches, if you choose, and one of the popular meals on Friday is chicken and dumplings and on Saturdays it’s probably steak or seafood. Both evenings draw a crowd, sometimes helped along by telephone calls to those who want confirmation on the evening menus.
In the early days, you could count on the Kentucky Derby to bring in the horsey crowd, known to wager a bet or two among themselves or stage high stake gin rummy games that broke out occasionally.
The Meadows and other investments by his father gave young Mike the kind of education that he wouldn’t have gotten at college as he traveled with his mother and father to some exotic places, as well as Europe where the family often visited Paris and other major cities.
In many ways, young Mandzak has paid his way, working long hours at the restaurant, something he still hasn’t gotten used to over the years. His only day off, except for vacations, is Sunday but he still drops by the restaurant to do book work and other odd jobs.
“When I’m there on Sunday, I think about my father and his friends,” Mandzak said. While he doesn’t see any ghosts of The Meadows past, he said he has nothing but fond memories of his father. “He was a very kind and generous man.”
My real reason for being On-The-Road-Again in Minnesota was to see Miami University (Ohio) play the University of Minnesota in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metradome. Before 45,000 people, Miami lost the game in the second overtime on a missed 33 yard field-goal. Miami had trailed the Golden Gophers by 16 points midway through the fourth quarter before Quarterback Dan Raudabaugh entered the game and threw for two touchdowns and Trevor Cook kicked a field-goal to tie the game in the final seconds, thus making this game a very disappointing loss.
Pushing aside disappointment, Minnesota is a state that gets its name from the Dakota Indian word “Minisota” which means sky tinted water. The state has more than 15,000 lakes over 10 acres in size. With a population of about five million people, Minnesota serves as a vacation state for the Midwest, particularly for fishermen who want to stock up on walleye, blue gill and crappies, bass, trout, musky and pike, and other fresh water fish. Lake Superior to the north provides a thriving environment for lake trout, steelhead and salmon. Ice fishing in January and February is a fun adventure because of power augers, portable, heated shelters and fish finders that work through the ice.
Minnesota’s first state industry was fur trapping, followed by lumbering, iron ore mining and flour milling. Agriculture, of course, has been an important industry throughout Minnesota’s history.
The flour milling industry continues to live in Minnesota through The Mill City Museum in downtown Minneapolis. This Mill City Museum was built inside the limestone remains of the old Washburn A Mill (which became part of General Mills), one of the largest in the world in its day. The old mill exploded from the ignition of airborne flour dust and only some sections of the walls remain up-right. There was a demonstration of a flour dust explosion by one of the museum’s employees which graphically illustrated the power of such explosions.
The museum features plenty of exhibits to keep the children occupied. There are water exhibits illustrating the operation of water wheels and canal locks. There are baking exhibits where visitors can try their skill at bread making and bake or taste other flour-based products.
The highlight of my visit to The Mill City Museum was the flour mill exhibits as seen from a freight elevator. Believe it or not, we were seated on a freight elevator that traveled between seven floors to view various exhibits on each floor.
We did not leave our seats on the elevator, the doors opened and the lights came on revealing an exhibit on each floor; for example, there was an exhibit of an old time mill office and exhibits of various milling operations. On the eighth floor we exited the elevator to a breath-taking panoramic view of Minneapolis and the Mississippi River.
There was a very unique and entertaining film of the History of Minneapolis shown at various times throughout the day in The Mill City Museum. This museum is definitely worth seeing while in Minneapolis.
It should be noted that Minnesota is the birthplace of some famous people. Author Sinclair Lewis is from Sauk Centre and F. Scott Fitzgerald is from St. Paul. I went to visit Sauk Centre, Minn. because I wanted to see the original Main Street. Lewis wrote several books on the culture of American society in the 1920s that eventually brought him a Nobel Prize in literature. Main Street was one of his more popular books.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby among his more popular books. Another world renowned figure to come out of Minnesota is aviator Charles Lindberg, who is from Little Falls, and Garrison Keillor, the writer and master of ceremonies for the radio show, Prairie Home Companion in St. Paul is another famous personality from Minnesota and one of my favorites.
For those who like to shop, The Mall of America in Bloomington, a Minneapolis suburb, is the place to go. Besides having over 520 specialty stores, anchored by Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Nordstrom and Sears, there is an amusement park under-roof consisting of over 30 rides plus games to test one’s skills.
There are lots of restaurants and attractions; such as, the center fountain with its water cannons and animated targets and its light show and the North Woods Stage which presents family entertainment. And, to help the weary traveler and shopper get around and avoid the aggravations of traffic and parking, there is a Light-Rail Train system that runs between the MOA and downtown Minneapolis.
Probably the biggest tourist draw currently in the state is the collapse of the I-35W Bridge, which crossed the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. Like many others, I went down to the river to see the wreckage of this bridge. There were hundreds of people viewing the collapsed bridge from the 10th Avenue Bridge which runs parallel and very close to the I-35W Bridge.
The clean up work was underway and much of the concrete pavement had been removed from the steel sub-structure. The on-lookers were very quiet and a sense of reverence prevailed as folks re-lived this tragedy in their hearts and minds.
It looked to me like the bridge had been pulled to the south by the collapse of the southern-most span which broke the center span free and dropped it into the river unattached to any other structure. For me, the determining factor here was that the steel and concrete supports all were leaning south when they collapsed. We all will be very interested in the final report on this very tragic failure, and how the causes of this failure can be applied to existing bridge maintenance and future bridge construction.
For your information, here are some email addresses for this big, wonderful state. Fishing, exploreminnesota.com and info@dnr.state.mn.us, Restaurants, resorts, motels, www.destination.com. Mall of America, www.mallofamerica.com.
(Dave Tickel, a 1951 graduate of Middletown High School, is travel editor for MiddletownNow.com)
I enjoy the Southland – the southern states, which I define in the eastern portion of the United States as including Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri and all states south thereof. Maybe I like these southern states because they have a warmer climate, maybe because the south’s music and food appeal to me, or its culture of friendliness and its slower pace have a magnetic effect on me.
Travel plans would take me all the way to Mobile, Ala. on the Gulf of Mexico, then we would work our way north to Georgiana, the boyhood home of country music legend, Hank Williams, followed by a stop in Selma, the site of civil rights “Bloody Sunday,” then to Birmingham area for a look at the history of the iron industry surrounding that city.
Mobile, the first capital of the French territory of Louisiana, was founded in 1702. It is located on a delta formed by Mobile River alluvium which protrudes out into Mobile Bay. The city was the site of the first known Mardi Gras celebration in 1703, even before New Orleans.
Mobile, named by the French for the Mobilian Indian tribe which lived in the area, is the only seaport in Alabama. It’s seaport past includes the import of slaves and the export of cotton. More recently, Liberty ships were built there during WW II and now tour ships are docking in Port Mobile.
There are many museums there featuring The National African Achieves and Museum which houses slavery artifacts, portraits and biographies of famous African Americans and the history of colored carnival. There is a Museum of Art, a Mobile Carnival Museum, a live performing theater, a symphony and ballet, antebellum architectural historic districts, botanical gardens and other attractions.
Once in Mobile, we focused on Fort Gaines, which was named for General Edmund Pendleton Gaines who received national attention when as a young officer he led a detachment of soldiers to capture former vice-president Aaron Burr. Burr, o at the time was being accused of participating in a conspiracy to commit treason. Fort Gaines, located on Dauphine Island and completed in 1861, served along with Fort Morgan to protect the mouth of Mobile Bay so that Confederate blockade runners could supply the beleaguered Confederacy.
A famous naval battle was fought during the Civil War for control of Mobile Bay. In 1864, Admiral David Farragut of the Federal Navy ran through the Confederate fortifications at Mobile Bay shelling Fort Gaines and responding with the words, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!” when he saw the federal USS Tecumseh roll over when it hit a Confederate mine or torpedo.
Today, a visitor to Fort Gaines can see the “disappearing” gun mounts, a bakery, an active working blacksmith shop, officer’s and quartermaster quarters, kitchen courtyard, guardhouse, sally port, walls built with bricks made by slaves and powder and ball magazines. The “disappearing” gun mounts were called such because the gun would be lowered to reload and then raised again to be fired.
From the ramparts of Fort Gaines, we could get a beautiful view of Mobile Bay to the north and the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to the south.
We left Mobile on I-65 headed for Georgiana and a tour through Hank Williams’ boyhood home and museum. Hank lived in Georgiana from the time he was 8 until he was 11 years old. He was actually born in Mount Olive, Ala. on Sep. 17, 1923.
As we sat in the car plotting our next move there was a knock on my closed car window that scared me half to death. Jerking my head around I saw an attractive older woman’s smiling face looking in at me and brandishing a fistful of papers. I rolled down my window and after a cordial greeting she handed me the papers with a brief explanation. She told us that she was the president of the Hank Williams Fan Club and the papers I held were several of the Club’s Newsletters. She gave us the museum’s schedule and some information about the celebrations of Hank’s life and music that takes place there in Georgiana.
From Georgiana, we continued north on I-65 turning west onto US 80 which would take us to Selma, Alabama. US 80 is the route followed by the voting rights marchers on their way from Selma to Montgomery on March 21, 1965. The marcher’s route is well marked as the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail and there is a Loundes County Interpretive Center along the trail (US 80) which commemorates the events, the people and the route of the 1965 march. The Center is free.
As we approached the town of Selma we were able to make out a familiar landmark, the Edmund Pettus Bridge where “Bloody Sunday” occurred on March 7, 1965. At the north side of the bridge, 600 civil rights marchers came up against Sheriff Jim Clark, and the state and local police with billy clubs and tear gas. Some police were on horseback. This march was turned back and 17 people were hospitalized.
A successful march occurred from March 21 to 26, 1965 when marchers, beginning at Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, which we visited, were able to complete the march to the steps of the capitol building in Montgomery. M.L. King led this successful event.
There are many big and beautiful antebellum homes in the town. And, tours may be scheduled through the city and its cemetery. There is an oddity downtown, a fully functioning Rexall Drug Store, the likes of which I haven’t seen in years.
Just to the south of Selma is the first capital (1820-26) of Alabama, Cahawba, which became a ghost town after the Civil War. Today, Cahawaba is an important archaeological site and place of picturesque ruins. There is is an old Cahawaba Festival annually on the second Saturday in May in which visitors can enjoy a Southern barbeque, music, arts and crafts and games.
From Selma we ventured north to the Birmingham area, “The Pittsburgh of the South,” since we were interested in the origin of the iron and steel industry in Alabama. Alabama is the only place in the world in which iron ore, limestone and coal, the ingredients for iron and steel making, were found in close proximity and in abundance.
First, we went to the Bessemer Hall of History which was housed in a beautiful railroad depot – an abandoned Great Southern Railroad Depot. The reader may remember that Sir H. Bessemer developed a method of purifying molten iron by forcing air through it to remove impurities and make a better grade of steel. We were looking forward to this museum, but as luck would have it, it was closed. So, we went another 12 miles south to the Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park.
The Tannehill Ironworks was a major supplier of iron for Confederate ordnance being manufactured at Selma. Unknowingly, we tied together two sites that we visited in Alabama. The remnants of three charcoal blast furnaces at Tannehill could produce 22 tons of pig iron a day, which were shipped to the Naval Gun Works and Arsenal at Selma. Brown iron ore mines were only two miles away from the furnaces in those early days.
(Dave Tickel, a 1951 Middletown High School graduate, is travel editor for MiddletownNow.com)
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