At Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen, the Miller family is carrying on a longtime Middlefield tradition while creating a gathering place centered around family, faith and plenty of good food.
When you visit Northeast Ohio Amish Country, finding a good place to eat is part of the experience. You want more than a quick meal. You want the homemade food, local character and hospitality that make you feel like you’ve discovered someplace special. For decades, Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen has been one of those places in Middlefield.
Today, Dan and Rita Miller, along with their son Josh and a dedicated staff, are carrying that tradition forward. The family purchased Mary Yoder’s in the fall of 2019 from longtime owner Larry Kennel, but their connection to the restaurant began many years before they ever considered owning it.
From Friendship to a New Adventure
Dan operated a printing business in Holmes County and printed menus for Larry for approximately 25 years. Over time, the two became good friends. Eventually, Larry approached Dan and asked if his family would consider taking over the restaurant.
The idea made sense in some ways. The Millers came from a Mennonite background and understood the culture, and food had long been part of their family story. Still, taking over such an established Middlefield restaurant was a major decision. After a great deal of thought and prayer, Dan and Rita decided to take the opportunity.
Six months later, COVID arrived.
It certainly wasn’t the beginning they expected, but the family worked through those difficult months and kept moving forward. Over the past six years, they have updated the restaurant, expanded the menu and developed strong relationships throughout the Middlefield community.
For Dan, however, success isn’t measured only by how many meals leave the kitchen. His goal is for Mary Yoder’s to make a difference in the community — to provide a good place to eat, share the family’s faith through the way people are treated and let guests know that they genuinely care about the people who walk through their doors.
A Family That Knows Food
The Miller family’s food story actually goes back another generation. Josh remembers his grandfather, a nutritionist who worked in a nursing home, being passionate about food. Some of Josh’s earliest memories are carrying his grandfather’s green chair into a food trailer where they prepared ham sandwiches and bowls of Amish noodles.
When his grandfather became ill in the early 2000s, Dan and Rita began taking over many of his catering jobs. Through that experience, they became particularly good at something that would later prove invaluable at Mary Yoder’s: preparing large quantities of food while maintaining the quality and flavor of a home-cooked meal.
Since purchasing the restaurant, the family has made changes to the menu while being careful not to lose the traditional dishes people expect when visiting Amish Country. Roasted chicken, added shortly after they purchased the restaurant, has become a favorite alongside mashed potatoes, dressing and other familiar comfort foods. The menu has also expanded to include dishes such as stir-fry, salmon and breaded walleye, while steak night on the last Saturday of each month has become popular with local customers.
And then there is the pie.
Coming from an Amish and Anabaptist background, Josh laughs that the family naturally loves pie. They continue working with recipes, making changes and looking for ways to make their pies even better. Ultimately, Josh says, they want Mary Yoder’s to be the kind of place that makes someone think, “I want to go eat some roasted chicken and some pie.”
Room to Gather
A major renovation completed in January gave Mary Yoder’s a fresh look and essentially doubled the size of the buffet, providing more room for soups, salads and other selections. At the same time, the Millers were intentional about preserving the traditional character of the restaurant. They wanted it to remain what Josh describes as a “family-friendly, timeless kind of place.”
That welcoming atmosphere is particularly important because Mary Yoder’s has become a gathering place for much more than individual diners. With seating for approximately 300 to 350 guests, the restaurant regularly accommodates motorcoach tours, reunions and large family gatherings. Groups of 30, 40 and even 100 people can sit down together, enjoy a meal and continue their day exploring the area without the experience becoming an all-day production.
For the Millers, creating that sense of community extends to their employees as well. The restaurant is open six days a week, with staff members arriving as early as 5 a.m. and others working into the evening. Josh is quick to credit them for the restaurant’s success. The family wants Mary Yoder’s to be a place where people can work, gather with friends and family, and simply “do life together.”
There’s More to Come
The Millers have plenty of ideas for the future, including possibilities for expanding the gift shop and restaurant. Dan and Josh hint that there are other plans being discussed as well, although they aren’t quite ready to share all of them.
For now, visitors have plenty of reasons to make Mary Yoder’s part of a trip through Northeast Ohio Amish Country. Come hungry, settle in for a homestyle meal, browse the gift shop and enjoy a place where the people behind the restaurant care as much about the experience around the table as they do about what’s being served on it.
And before you leave, take Josh’s advice: save room for pie.
Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen
14743 North State Street
Middlefield, OH 44062
(440) 632-1939
