By Carol C. Cole
First of all, thanks to Marie Stoecklin who built and moved to 816 Miami Avenue in 1941 and knew the Andrew sisters as neighbors, I need to make a correction to my last month's article. Although the Andrew sisters owned land where 810 Miami Avenue stands, their cottage was across the street at 823 Miami Avenue. They had a garage in the middle of the yard for their electric car and a lot more land in the back than there is now down to the river.
Last month I told you about some boarding houses and a few places to "eat out" in Terrace Park. After her husband's death, Mrs. McMullen at 607 Wooster Pike served wonderful "chicken dinners and homemade ice cream on weekends" to support herself. Childress Rodgers now owns the McMullen house. Her next door neighbors, Edith and Matt Cook, parents of Virginia Marquett (800 Indian Hill Road), told her the McMullen's not only owned this house but had "land across the street where they had a barn and pasture for their horses and cows." "People came from Cincinnati on the Swing Line Railroad, which ran through Red Bird Hollow to Terrace Park. So many people were coming that she added a front porch to the house for an extra dining room. Sometimes Mrs. Cook and two of her Iuen sisters and her sister-in-law Betty Everhart, whose aunts opened the tearoom, and Bob O'Hara, son of Bertha O'Hara told us The Marigold Tea Shoppe was opened about 1926/7 in an already existing building by Bertha O'Hara, a widow, and Gertrude Grunkemeyer, a maiden lady relative. It closed in 1942 due to the gasoline shortage. There was no printed menu. A large sign was by the driveway. It was noted for its fried chicken dinners (quoted in "Adventures in Good Eating", a nationally distributed book). It served groups: weddings, receptions and the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, some of whom lived in Terrace Park.
Members of the Cincinnati Reds also ate at the Kuntz and later the Vilardo's Tavern, where wonderful Italian food was served. Evidently people came all the way from Indiana for their famous spaghetti and meatballs. Albert Vilardo, owner of Vilardo's Taven along with his wife Mary, was a wonderful cook. One thing he really liked to make was a highly spiced and hot "pepper relish". This consisted of green peppers, chili peppers, banana peppers, zucchini, diced onions, garlic and diced tomatoes.
The Vilardos never had any employees helping them. It was totally a family run business.
Rahn's Barbecue was a popular eating-place owned by Myrtle and Wesley Rahn. In 1958 they sold it to Frank and Irene Grady who added more eating area and continued the barbecue tradition until the 1970s. This was the place children went to eat on Saturday nights if their parents were going out - and quite a treat it was. Wonderful homemade pies were also on their menu.
413 Terrace Place, where Wiebold's is now, is thought to have been an empty lot until Robert Corey bought it from Louis Bosch in 1947. He built an ice cream parlor there in the early 1950s, which he and his wife, Faye, ran until it was sold in 1953.
Whether or not we'll ever have another "restaurant" in Terrace Park remains to be seen. Certainly there were some excellent ones here in earlier times. Evidently some people would like one and others think one doesn't belong in Terrace Park. What do you think?