As a family, we discussed the possible adventure of building a new restaurant at great lengths: the workload, hours, the economy, the costs, etc.   Needless to say, it was a daunting idea, but eventually we decided to give our local community something that it needed, wanted, and deserved.  

A place for family and friends who live, work, and play in our small community to come together to eat, drink, and be merry.   A place where we could celebrate today while honoring tradition.

The most popular question was of course “What do we name it?”  One thing we could all agree upon was that we wanted the name to have some meaning. Some history. Some significant tie to the community where our ancestors settled and my family has called home for more than 150 years.

Being raised “a railroad brat” since my father worked for the R&R his entire career, the truth was that I was tired of all the names that included the old standards… rail, tracks, trains, locomotives, etc. At some point, all the local names start to sound the same and become rather unremarkable.

Fortunately, Krista Simmons had the perfect idea and pitched it to Jacob Gradwohl and me during one of our early work sessions.  We could do both: pay respects to the community’s long history while also focusing on something new and different.

In short, something that would help pay homage to our community but deliver it with an original twist.