Dairy Bar Restaurant in Berlin changes hands
BERLIN ― After 45 years of continuous ownership for one family, the Dairy Bar Restaurant will close this Friday.
The well-known restaurant once known as Glessner's Dairy Bar at 3494 Berlin Plank Road served up daily specials, homemade desserts and soft-freeze ice cream. It will reopen Nov 1., as Coalfield's Diner under new ownership and a new menu.
"This restaurant has always been a part of everyone's life in this family for generations," said Missi May, who has operated the family business since 2002 and added on the large dining area in 2003. "It is a bittersweet time for our family and all the great staff people who have been faithful through the years."
May's stepfather and mother, Bill and Barbara Glessner, took over the already-established ice cream shop from Charlie Hoover in 1978. Bill's parents, Bill and Dorothy Glessner, actually purchased the place and then Bill and Barb ran it.
Before that, the Phennice family operated it. The McKinley family built the dairy bar in 1957.
"I wanted something I could work through the summer and close in the winter so this seemed like a good fit," said Bill Glessner, who didn't mind the time off to go hunting in the fall after the dairy bar closed for winter. Bill and Barb continued serving ice cream like their predecessors but later took the horseshoe bar out for more restaurant seating for dining. Then, things got busy.
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"We were so busy one time we had this produce guy who stopped by for a delivery and I told him I was too busy to take care of him so he went over and started taking orders," laughed Barb. "Then, one time I cut my finger before the restaurant opened and had to go to the emergency room. After I got some stitches, I came back to work that day. We had a lot of good people working here through the years and we had good times."
Barb's daughter Missi May, who currently owns the restaurant with her husband, Mike Griffith, literally grew up in the family business and helped out at the restaurant as a teenager. Like herself, Missi's sons, Ian Will, 36, and Brock Fisher, 24, both of Berlin, worked in the restaurant. Missi and Mike work in the restaurant together.
"I grew up in this restaurant and worked in the food industry all my life," said May. "When it was time for my mom and stepdad to retire from here, I wanted to continue on and decided to purchase it from them in 2002."
May describes 2003 as a "turning point" when an addition was completed to make way for more dining. Then, meals were served year-round and things continued to get busy. In 2016, the restaurant started serving breakfast.
"We took some of our favorite family recipes and made daily specials," May said. "We used to be open seven days a week but decided to close Mondays for a break. We took pride in carrying on the tradition of homestyle cooked meals."
And then through the years, there was a shift from ice cream to family dining. In fact, the family describes how all the Berlin buses brought all the school children to the dairy bar for the last day of school every year for an ice cream. Even though the ice cream end of the business dwindled after its heydey of the 1970s and '80s, May kept the soft-serve ice cream as part of the dessert menu.
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In recent months, May decided it was time for a change and laughed about how she and one of her longtime servers, Cathy Koontz, always joked through the years that when Cathy retired someday, May would sell the business. While Koontz has recently decided to retire, May explains there were many factors for her decision to move on.
New owner, familiar face
The realty listing for the restaurant caught the attention of Jeff Miele, who owns Coalfield Mini-Mart on the other side of town.
Miele grew up in Pittsburgh and then later lived and worked in New York City, owning a commercial sign company. He had planned to go to the World Trade Center to do business on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Miele was working in the city that day when he and a client watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center. It was then that Miele decided to get out of New York City and move closer to his parents, who lived in Fulmont, near Central City, at that time.
He purchased Coalfield Mini-Mart in Berlin in 2003, Coalfields along Route 30 in 2008, and operated Coalfield's Diner at the same location along Route 30 from 2013-18. He sold it and it has since closed.
"I saw a good business opportunity," Miele said. "My family has been in the restaurant business all their lives and we want to offer something unique for the Berlin community."
While Miele said that he will be taking out the soft-serve ice cream, he plans to compensate for that loss by providing daily specials, steaks on the menu, prime rib meals on Saturday nights, a big Italian day on Wednesdays and barbecue on Thursdays.
"This establishment is part of the fabric of the Berlin community and we plan on continuing the traditions of the Glessner family and adding some interesting new things as well," Miele said.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Glessner's Dairy Bar will reopen as Coalfield's Diner Nov. 1
