“We’ve seen about a 10 percent increase in our sales (each year) over the last two years, so we’re growing and we just want to keep growing,” Imm said. “I thought, in order to do that, we’d have to open another spot.”
Looking at sites throughout the Greater Cincinnati area, including Blue Ash, Imm said he and his wife “fell in love” with downtown Mason and a building that once was home to an insurance office.
“I liked the streetscape and the overall homey feel ... and she liked the square. She thought that it would be nice for people to go and eat lunch out there.”
The original Quatman Café on Quatman Avenue and Montgomery Road brings with it a more than four-decade tradition of pub grub and a bevy of Web site and magazine awards for the quality of its no-nonsense menu, Imm said.
That menu includes a back-to-basics burger of meat, onions, pickles and, if a customer requests it, a slice of cheese, all served on a paper plate.
Missing from between the buns are tomatoes and lettuce, a culinary trademark cooked up by Imm’s late father, Albert, who purchased the restaurant in the 1960s.
“It’s a half-pound burger, so it’s already pretty big and people like it so we’re just going to keep the Quatman burger the same,” Imm said.
Quatman Café also offers a deli stocked with lunch meats and cheeses, plus homemade chili and chicken noodle, bean, vegetable and mock turtle soups. Imm said he whips up batches of potato soup during Lent.
Lunch specials cost a little more than $6 and include fries and a drink, along with a cheeseburger, beef barbecue sandwich, fish sandwich or a hot ham and cheese, depending on the day.
Burgers costs $4.25 and an average tab at the eatery runs about $8. A beer bar includes two local brews on tap — Christian Moerlein and Hudy Delight.
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