Take one last look when you’re driving through Cuyahoga Falls.
An iconic piece of advertising is coming down after more than 50 years.
“Perhaps this belongs in the ‘it doesn’t matter’ file, but have you noticed that when a business closes, they usually take down the sign out front immediately?” Beacon Journal reader Michael Gaffney wrote.
“I assume they hope people won’t remember what the business was that used to be there. But the Ponderosa steakhouse on State Road in Cuyahoga Falls has been closed for a long time ...10 years? 15 years? Yet the sign is still there.”
Not for much longer, Michael.
The Texas restaurant chain opened at 1641 State Road in 1972. Back then, diners could buy a T-bone steak dinner for $2.49, a sirloin steak dinner for $1.79 and a chopped steak dinner for $1.39. All dinners were served with a baked potato, tossed salad and hot roll.
In the 1980s, the steakhouse became famous for its salad buffet.
“Over 50 of your favorite fixin’s,” Ponderosa advertised. “With everything from soup to nuts, it’s simply out of this world!”
The chain peaked with about 600 restaurants in the late 1980s.
The Falls restaurant was among 15 Northeast Ohio locations that closed in 2008 as the chain prepared to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Now there are fewer than 20 Ponderosa steakhouses , including Ohio locations in Columbus, Hillsboro and Wheelersburg.
Somehow the Cuyahoga Falls sign never got removed.
“A lot of people wonder why it’s still up,” said Roger Lal, director of operations for MLE Enterprises LLC, which owns the property.
An unnamed tenant has signed a lease for the building and soon plans to tear down sections of the State Road structure. The Ponderosa sign will come down in a couple of weeks, he said.
Who knows where it will end up? Prospective buyers already are making offers.
“People have been calling about that sign,” Lal said.
Another history mystery
Who was the bride? Who was the groom?
Akron native Charlene Brasaemle Rawson, 93, formerly of Bath and now of Creston, asked us to solve a history mystery from her youth.
“I was a flower girl in a wedding that took place on the stage of the old Akron Armory probably on a Saturday night in 1934, 1935, 1936,” she wrote. “I was born in 1931. The last name of the bride was McKnight — either Helen or Lillian.”
Rawson wore a light blue dress and carried a bouquet. She didn’t recall the name of the groom, but she provided one more clue about the ceremony.
“I vaguely remember it might have had something to do with groceries because it was in the Great Depression,” she wrote.
“Good luck if you care to pursue this.”
We love a challenge. It took a little digging, but we found the answer.
“PUBLIC WEDDING DRAWS BIG CROWD,” the headline read.
Lillian McKnight of North Hill married Francis Grell of Cuyahoga Falls on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 1936, during the six-day Akron Retail Grocers and Meat Dealers Food Show at the armory. The Rev. Hugh Galloway, pastor of North Hill Presbyterian Church, presided over the ceremony.
The couple won a contest for a free wedding. Expo visitors witnessed the service as a special attraction between food exhibits and cooking classes.
Retailers paid for the ceremony and presented the couple with a $100 check (about $2,254 today). Each of the 45 exhibitors gave the newlyweds an assortment of food supplies.
What a wonderful prize during the Great Depression!
A grainy 1936 photograph in the Beacon Journal shows the wedding party, including little Charlene Brasaemle. We sent copies of the clippings to Rawson.
“Amazing!” she replied.
The Grells were married for 26 years and had two sons: John and Richard. Francis, a maintenance worker at Goodyear, died in 1962 at age 48. Lillian, a retiree from Western Reserve Academy, passed away in 1999 at age 82.
Rawson said she couldn’t wait to share the 1936 news clippings with her sons Brent, Blake, Barry, Bruce and Burke Rawson, all of Ohio, and her daughter, Lauren Morris, who lives in Florida.
The flower girl’s mystery is solved after nearly 88 years.
“What a happy day!” she said.
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com
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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Ponderosa sign to be taken down on State Road in Cuyahoga Falls
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