By Stephen Baldwin
RealWV, www.therealwv.com
“America’s Best Small Town Food Scene” is adding a new menu to its varied repertoire. The Old Red Mill Taphouse & Grille brings comfort food to downtown Lewisburg.
“It’s going great,” co-owner Amy Mills says of her new restaurant. “People love the comfort food, the price points, and the atmosphere.”
Amy also owns and operates Amy’s Cakes & Cones next door, a popular breakfast, sandwich, and sweet shop. She and her family members wanted to expand operations.
“We talked to our landlord,” she remembers. “We told him we were looking for another place to run a second restaurant. We didn’t want him to think we were moving.”
It turned out that Hill & Holler was moving out of the building beside Amy’s, so the owners offered her the chance to move in.
“It’s very convenient to our other restaurant,” says Amy. “Now we have both places, and we sell craft, local beer and serve comfort food next door to the original place.”
The Food
The Old Red Mill offers a varied menu of items ranging from fried pickles to beet salads to fried chicken to specialty burgers to loaded tater tots to pizza to brisket.
In a move very near and dear to my Irish heart, their side items include four different types of potatoes – house cut chips, fries, mashed potatoes with gravy, and tater tots.
The Building
The Old Red Mill sits inside an historic log cabin on Route 219 inside the grounds of Montwell Commons. Locals refer to it as the Fort Savannah, the name of a hotel and restaurant which had a long run in Lewisburg. However, it had a history before that time.
According to Amy, “Before it was the Fort Savannah, it was called the Old Red Mill. It was going to be a country store and museum. Two weeks before it was supposed to open, it burned to the ground.”
Since Amy is running the new restaurant with her husband and his brothers, whose last name is Mills, they all decided fate would name the new place – The Old Red Mill Taphouse & Grille.
“It’s the same as our last name,” she says, “and we wanted to do comfort food. It just made sense.”
Inside, the Mills family decorated the space to look like an old general store as a tribute to the land’s history.
The new Old Red Mill is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is located at 970 Jefferson Street North, Lewisburg. Their number is 304-520-4141.
