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MIDDLETOWN — Lakeside Inn gave its owner, Jimmy Valentine, several good years, but he said hard times that have fallen on the bar and restaurant have cost him dearly.
Valentine closed Lakeside Inn, 2019 Tytus Ave., in May. Valentine said he’s the eighth owner of the restaurant, which opened in 1921. It was one of Middletown’s oldest establishments, once known for Friday fish dinners, and the thick sandwiches and fries for lunch.
“Used to go there when I worked at lunchtime,” said Audrey Schroff of Middletown about the 1950s and ’60s before she retired.
Schroff, 80, said, they “always had good food.”
Gangster and bank-robber John Dillinger is said to have stopped for lunch at Lakeside, after staying at a Hamilton hotel on the way to Dayton, according to Valentine.
For the past 15 years that Valentine was owner, prime rib was served every night. But one of the most popular items on the menu was the half-pound burgers, he said. It used to be if you didn’t come by 4 p.m. on the weekend, you couldn’t get a seat at the bar.
The 63-year-old Valentine said he loved every minute of it. But nothing prepared him for an economy that cost his customers their jobs so they couldn’t afford to stop for a bite to eat. The economic downturn was precipitated by a windstorm in 2008 that caused $6,000 in lost products.
And now, he said, that’s cost him everything but his health, which is poor. He closed the restaurant once already last year for three months. But the money he received then to help keep it open didn’t do any good.
The $1,000 Valentine used to take in one weekend dropped to $200 a week. It costs $400 a day to run the place, he said.
On Sept. 8, the restaurant and his adjacent house went into foreclosure, and will be auctioned.
“I miss all the people,” he said. “I’m hoping somebody buys it at the auction and keeps it the Lakeside.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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