It's a tough job taking over a beloved local restaurant. It's a truism in life that you can't please everyone, but some of the people you invariably are aiming to please, well, they've been frequenting your business for years and years. Many of them make appearances multiple times a day, ordering the same breakfast scramble or corned beef hash for years. They want the comfort food—turkey dinners, meatloaf, chicken croquettes and fish and chips—they've become well accustomed to.
Anyone who ambles into Mueller's Kitchen on 611 South in Easton will still find that sort of home-cooking fare and then some.
“We like to call this place ‘your kitchen away from home,'” says Alicia Fryer, general manager.
Mueller's is that classic spot you've passed a thousand times, always wondered about, but never pulled over to try. Jonathan Davis and Greg Schuyler, better known as the owners of Pearly Baker's Ale House and the Bank Street Annex, took over this long-running business in April 2014 from Mary Adams, which was established sometime in the 1970s as a bait shop. According to Dan Boyko, head chef, it turned into a restaurant “sometime in the 1980s or ‘90s, we're not sure.”
What we do know is that Mary Adams, the most recent owner, took over for her father (who had purchased it in 1984) in 2002. She changed the name to Mueller's Too in 2007. Davis and
Schuyler changed the name from Mueller's Too to Mueller's General Store and Kitchen to better reflect the amped-up menu, which now includes breakfast, lunch and dinner along with specials ranging from the likes of pulled pork omelets to Mediterranean burgers to chef salads. They've secured a liquor license, so you can buy beer—and margaritas, and daiquiris and sangria—on the premises, or grab a six-pack of craft beers, many of them Pennsylvania brews, from the attached General Store. They've also freshened up the interior space with a vintage-vibe color scheme, courtesy of local consult Mercantile Home in Easton.
One of the more significant additions is the amped-up presence of exterior seating, which bumps the seating capacity by about 30, to nearly 65. It involved closing down the walk-up ice cream counter and turning it into a spruced-up patio area. The patio components (bar, table, beams) were reclaimed from a nearby barn, sourced from one of their customers and put together by Davis's father-in-law. That exterior seating is prime real estate—Mueller's is located right on the
Delaware Canal and Towpath. “It's the location that sealed the deal for Jon and Greg,” says Fryer. Although they've operated Pearly's for 20-plus years, they are country boys at heart; Davis grew up on a farm and Schuyler by the river in Hunterdon County. The pair met in high school.
This cheery place, the kind that uses brightly colored, retro-feeling Fiestaware, is a worthy pit stop to inspire a run, walk, float or bike ride down the towpath. Or a trip on its own accord—a conscious move on their part. “We are trying to become a destination,” says Fryer. With that direct towpath access, it shouldn't be hard. Visitors walk to the restaurant from Easton, she says. If you're coming by water, they've got you covered. “People can dock their boats or even inner tubes and come up and have something to eat,” she says. “We finally have a bike rack here,” she adds. It's stupefying to think a destination so close to outdoor activities didn't have one.
Fryer may look familiar if you've been around the area long enough; she's worked at Pearly's, and so has Boyko, 26, a local who's been in the restaurant business for 16 years. He started as a dishwasher at the restaurant where his mom worked, The Shack, in Slatington. (Yes, that means he was 10.) He's worked all around the region, from the King George Inn to Lee Gribbens on Main, among others. He credits his mother, who passed away in 2011, along with his best friend, Esteban Morales, another chef in the region, as two of his biggest inspirations. Seeing how comfortable he was in the kitchen, his mom urged him apply to Northampton Community College's culinary arts program—that's where he ended up, although he mentions that he got into CIA (Culinary Institute of America) but notes the expense of it. “She always wanted me to be happy,” he says.
Indeed, Boyko seems perfectly content discussing the popular smoked meats at Mueller's, like the baby back ribs with homemade cole slaw. “We try todo as much as possible from scratch. It makes a difference,” he says. People are smart enough to detect that difference, too. The smokehouse burger, with bacon and cheddar, is also a draw but it's not technically smoked; the mayo has a dash of Liquid Smoke in it. For breakfast, expect a full range of omelets and the essential breakfast carbs (waffles, pancakes, French toast), plus some real throwbacks: sausage gravy served over biscuits, S.O.S. (house creamed chipped beef over toast or pancakes) and the Hash: two eggs with corned beef hash. It's not all turkey dinners and meatloaf though; there are more refined dishes too, including a pan-seared salmon with orange-fennel salsa served over rice and seasonal veggies.
If you've left room, pastry chef Andrea Tsiouskas turns out seasonal fruit pies, along with diner classics like key lime and coconut cream pies, plus chocolate mousse cake and carrot cake. Slices are available to go in the general store, which also sells odds and ends, deli sandwiches, a fridge full of homemade potato and macaroni salad along with grab-and-go meals from the kitchen such as meatloaf and lasagna.
Anglers can still rely on Mueller’s for live bait in the back of the store. It’s all as homespun and down-to-earth as it sounds.
Anglers can still rely on Mueller’s for live bait in the back of the store. It’s all as homespun and down-to-earth as it sounds.
Anglers can still rely on Mueller's for live bait in the back of the store. It's all as homespun and down-to-earth as it sounds.
My favorite find, and most telling detail, is the contractors' board, tucked in the hallway that adjoins the store and the kitchen. Do you need a realtor, a pet sitter, or someone to landscape your yard or process the deer you hunted? The board has you covered. But if you are also curious about where you could purchase fresh-pressed juices, this is your place. Mueller's represents a cross-section of the old and the new in an honest way. It's evolving from its previous incarnation, but slowly, and not without lots and lots of feedback from its customers.
Most good restaurants, bars and cafés foster such a sense of community that they serve as what sociologists call a “third place”—the spot that isn't your home or work where you go to gather with others and hang out. And yes, everyone knows everyone, it feels like family—all those clichés are a vivid, Technicolor truth here. But there's something more fervent going at Mueller's: it's this ardent sense of ownership that people develop after habits become staunchly ingrained in them.
Old habits die hard, right? Fryer and Boyko say some are still upset that the six specials Mary ran—different ones every day—are no longer the main attraction. New ownership wanted a more regular menu; it can make running a restaurant a more reliable and smooth enterprise. Some curious discoveries have occurred, too. Boyko says, “Someone told me that if I put anything written in French on the menu they would never come back,” he says. To that end, at one point he had a filet mignon special for dinner and, thinking nothing of it, called it just that. “No one bought it, so it ended up in stew. Two weeks later, I called it beef tenderloin and it all sold out before the weekend,” he says, shaking his head.
But people are coming back, even those who were initially skeptical of the ownership change. And that's because the essentials have not changed. “We are still serving really great food,” says Boyko. “It's good portions and it's delicious,” adds Fryer. Bike, float or walk on down, and taste for yourself.
