Today we’d like to introduce you to Christine Monroe-Beard
Christine, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
History of the Tavern! Ye Olde Trail Tavern is Ohio’s oldest tavern. It started in 1827 as a tavern built by Elijah Mills and was bought later by German immigrant Franz Martin Hafner. Hafner has immigrated to Baltimore from Kehl, Baden Wurtemburg Germany in the 1830’s with his parents and siblings. He apprenticed as a baker while in Baltimore and then moved to Cincinnati where he met William Neff. Neff was a pork producer and businessman in, what we now know as ‘Over the Rhine’ district in Cincinnati. Somewhere along the way Neff and Mills were introduced in Cinci where Mills also had dealings in pork production. Neff came to Yellow Springs in the early 1840’s and purchased a large hotel that the Mills family created from humble beginnings. When Neff bought the hotel, Hafner came with him and oversaw the hotel’s day to day business while Neff was in Cinci, Hafner met and married a local woman, Mary Ann Sroufe whose family were also German immigrants but were land owners and well known in the area. In 1847 Franz and Mary Ann bought the land that the tavern sits on and brought the house they were living in on the hotel land to be combined with the Tavern building to create a large structure that the family could live and work from. Franz and family lived, grew and worked out of this building in many endeavors until their deaths in 1895 and 97. The entirety of the property and buildings there on stayed in the Hafner family until the 1960’s. It was bought by a family in 1980 and kept in their family until it was separated and sold in the 2010’s.
I worked for this family in the 1990’s at Ye Olde Trail Tavern and their other endeavor Tavern 2 (a fine dining restaurant). Growing up in the Yellow Springs area and having family here for 200 years it has always felt like home. I have traveled around the world and have felt like I could moved to many places but Yellow Springs will always be my home. In 2016 the previous owner had expressed interest in retirement and in January of 2017 I was able to purchase Ye Olde Trail Tavern and keep the history going,
I have always been a lover of history, antiques and the stories they tell, deep family connections and the connections that this area has within the greater region and even the world! Yellow Springs has so many stories to tell, we are 6 degrees of separation from so many things in the world, we are a well spring for so many things…innovation, business, arts, music, science, human rights, You name it and it can be connected to Yellow Springs. I love to research these connections.
I started my love of history as a kid being a voracious reader and reenacted 18th century history with the Geo. Rogers Clark Heritage Association for roughly 12 years. I became the family member that knew the history of the relatives and where everyone connected. I see the world around me as a spider web where we are all connected somehow.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Keeping Ye Olde Trail Tavern going has been an exciting ride. The normal challenges of running a business is heavy enough but to add in going through Covid in a small village and finding a balance of taking care of employees and customers alike has been an endeavor. Shepherding this 200 year old tavern into the modern day and still honoring its history has been a challenge. We want to keep its character but make it convenient to the customer experience and easily workable for our employees,
Doing business in a small village like ours is a unique experience. We are essentially a tourist town, we’ve been a college town, a village of industry, but we’ve always been a village that attracted those from all over the US and Europe. This in itself brings challenges with keeping your core identities as a small welcoming village and also bringing enough of the outside in to stay in business,
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think I’ve taken previous questions that were supposed to be personal and focused on Ye Olde Trail Tavern but it is such a giant piece of who I am. Ye Olde Trail Tavern as a business is a fast casual restaurant focusing on a semi-homemade German-American menu in a historic atmosphere. We strive to provide a delicious unique meal with fresh products. We want our customers to have an experience not just a meal. If you come here to eat, you will be fed well with great products in a timely manner however that’s not the only reason for coming to the Ye Olde Trail Tavern. Coming to the Trail Tavern is an experience, its the characteristic historic atmosphere, its the warm cozy European feel that you get when here, its the ghost stories, its the friendly familiar vibe, its the beautiful patio~ its more than just the fact that you come to a restaurant to be fed. You are coming to a historic tavern for an experience, take your time-relax. We want you to learn and experience. Ye Olde Trail Tavern being the oldest structure in Yellow Springs and the oldest Tavern in Ohio is an experience in itself and it is a representative for all the history in Yellow Springs; its sort of an ambassador. There’s so much that this building has seen, contributed to and be a part of….the beginning of Antioch College, the fight for civil rights, its owners fought for the North in the Civil War, the fight for the woman’s vote, the women’s temperance union~which is a conundrum with being a tavern, taking a respite and then returning to selling liquors. It holds so many stories of and for Yellow Springs and its area.
(if it of interest to the writer, feel free to contact me about a side project. I am creating a podcast/platform called ‘all roads lead to Yellow Springs’ which focuses on the 6 degrees of separation concept of Yellow Springs having indelible impact on so many genres in the US and world. From the business incubation of environmental instrumentation, to music, to writing, to civil rights, and more.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Any person in business is a risk taker, you take a risk that your idea, your brand, your effort will work within the market that you introduce it to. Risk is part of life in general, every day you make a decision you take a risk that it will go in the direction that you intended. Restaurants and hospitality are a great risk, you craft an idea, you work to create a great product, your market that product and then you hope that others will join you in believing in that product and idea. Taking on a historic tavern and shepherding it along is a risk but also it is an enormous weight. Here is this entity that has been around for 200 years and you hope you’re able to be strong, creative, and productive enough to keep it going to hand it off to the next person to do the same.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.oldetrailtavern.com
- Instagram: oldetrailtavern
- Facebook: oldetrailtavern
