Lorain County Life: [BIKE] Main Street Soda Grill

Today it was 54 degrees outside; warm for a late November day in Ohio. Sarah and I decided to take the bikes out for a ride before I had to go to work. With no real plan in mind we headed West and ended up at the Vermilion Farm Market. After our pepperoni cheese purchase we continued West into Vermilion, a city that seems to appear a lot on this blog. Once downtown we decided to eat at another place that shows up frequently here, Big Ed's Main Street Soda Grill.

Main Street Soda Grill.

Neither of us had ever eaten at this restaurant before, which is surprising considering how many times we have been right in front of it.

Downtown Vermilion, 1900. (Dennis Lamont)

As you can see in the picture above, the building on the far right is what is now Big Ed's. The streets are paved now too in case you were wondering.

The building was built in 1870 and house multiple businesses at the time including a post office, general store, shoe store, and a saloon. In 1920 it was purchased by Albert Hart. He moved his drug store into the building and installed the soda fountain that still resides in the building today. It is actually in the lease that the fountain cannot be taken out. (Vermilion Views)

Front of the building, 2014.

Front of the building with LSE Train, 1901. (Dennis Lamont)

As you can see from the then and now pictures not much has changed on the outside of the building, but what about the inside? Lets take a look.

Front of the building from the inside.

Old jukebox by the entrance.

Soda fountain.

Miscellaneous items next to our booth.

As you can see the restaurant is now a hodgepodge of items ranging from the late 1800's to the present. It is like a broken time machine and it is awesome. There was one feature that was of particular interest, mainly because it sat right next to our booth.

Display cases.

These display cases run the entire length of the wall next the booths and I wasn't quite sure as to what they were. My wife suggested that since it was once a drug store that these may have been behind the counter to display items not on the floor and guess what, she was right! (Odd right?)

Interior of the drug store with Albert Hart, probably around 1920. (Vermilion Views)

As you can see in the far left of the above photograph the display cases are in fact behind the counter. But wait, there's more! The whole shelving system still runs the length of the wall today, as seen in the picture below.

Crazy! Right? No, just me? Okay, well since I have bored you enough with my history lesson, here is a picture of our food, and it was delicious.

Food!

I had the cheeseburger and Sarah had something called a "Chicken Subwich"...basically a hot sub with chicken bacon and cheese. We also got a vanilla blueberry malt that was big enough to split into two glasses, you know, for the cooties. I have never had a malt before. It was amazing.