» PHOTOS: Remembering favorite restaurants from Dayton’s past
“Stockyards” more than a name
In 1900, four men — Talton Embry, president, George Slimer, vice president, William Focke, treasurer, and J.T. Burkhardt, secretary — started the Union Stockyards with $100,000 in stocks.
Cattle dealers arrived in Dayton by train and stayed overnight at the old Union Stock Yards Co. A restaurant and living quarters, then called the Union Stockyards Inn, opened in the same building with the cattle commission offices.
In the area that became the parking lot, pens held cattle and other livestock.
Until 1940, the restaurant, which first was operated by Edward Cain and, subsequently, by members of his family, was a busy operation.
The Stockyards operated until the late 1950s.
The Stockyards Inn had an 18-foot cherry-wood bar, that remained for all of it’s 113 years. Patrons could see remnants of the rowdy days of the past including a bullet hole over the mirror behind the bar and two bullet holes in one of the hand-carved stools.
The post-stockyards era
As Union Stock Yards declined, so did the restaurant’s business. In 1965, Richard Jeffcott converted the Stockyards Inn into a family-type restaurant.
That year, $80,000 worth of renovations were completed. The main dining room had seating for 150 and the bar area, known as the “Bull Pen,” had seating for another 50 people.
Upstairs, some old newspaper clippings decorated the walls and the second-floor rooms were made available for private parties.
The Albert Schmitz era
Albert Schmitz bought the Stockyards Inn in 1969 and was the owner until 1978.
One reminder of the cattle days, the original wire cashier’s cage where cattlemen used to bicker for commissions, was still in use. It’s where you would pay your meal check.
The Bob and Jane Bartusch era
Bob and Jane Bartusch bought it in 1978, two years after Bob Bartusch became the restaurant’s manager.
During at least the 1970s and ‘80s, a tabloid-size newsprint menu was used at the restaurant. It included actual excerpts from an edition of the Dayton Daily News dated Tuesday, March 7, 1900 — the date when the Stockyards Inn began operations as part of the adjoining Union Stock Yards. The unique menu was meant to also serve as a free souvenir.
Steaks and prime rib remained the house specialties. For salads, the house dressing was a garnet-colored sweet and sour. Most popular were the Diamond Jim Brady New York cut steak or the Kansas City Cut. The restaurant offered moderate prices and a varied menu, also including some seafood options.
Every Wednesday, The Stockyards Inn offered a dinner special: a 6-ounce sirloin steak for $9.95. This special included a salad and choice of a potato or vegetable.
A 1980 Dayton Daily News writer described the Stockyards Inn like this: “The red-painted, white-shuttered frame structure has slightly sagging porches and squeaky stairs, but as one walks through the front door, the coffee smells good and the feeling one gets is one of a comfortable, old welcome. With its red flocked wallpaper and gaslight-type lamps, Victorian antiques and handsome woodwork, vinyl tablecloths and acoustical tile ceiling, it reminds one of those ancient ladies who wear too much rouge.”
Auctions
The couple first put the restaurant up for sale in early 2012. But no serious offers emerged, and on June 29, 2013, the couple closed the restaurant permanently. After failing to find a buyer, the restaurant was put up for auction.
The lone bid of $50,000 did not come close to the $175,000 minimum that had been set.
So they decided to auction off its antiques, memorabilia and equipment.
Bidding by the crowd of more than 200 was spirited. And for some, it was personal. Auctioneer Frank Lewis opened the auction by asking how many in the crowd had eaten at the Stockyards Inn. About 90 percent raised their hands.
A century-old painting of a hog that hung on the wall of the restaurant sold for $4,000
Pieces of the past
Renovations to the Basil’s on Market restaurant in Troy utilized wooden beams salvaged from the former Stockyards Inn in Dayton, and some of the other salvaged lumber was used in the downtown Dayton Basil’s on Market.
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