Howell’s Cafe to move back to ‘sunny side of the street’

BY ERIKA NORTON
GOSHEN — Howell’s Cafe — a breakfast and lunch mainstay of downtown Goshen celebrating its 60th anniversary — is moving across the street, combining with its sister establishment, the Sunflower Cafe.
The lease for Howell’s came up in July, owner Sarah Grillo said. And after trying to negotiate an extended lease, she said, it just didn’t work out.
But since Grillo also owns the Sunflower Cafe located across from Howell’s on West Main Street, she came up with a plan.
“The idea developed to merge the two businesses,” Grillo said. “Keep everything the same, keep what Sunflower does, keep what we do, but just kind of operate out of the same space.”
The Sunflower Cafe opened three years ago next to Joe’s Fix Its. It offers juices, smoothies, and healthier breakfast and lunch options often appealing to vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free guests. The plan, Grillo said, is to redesign the footprint inside to allow for more seating and to use the space more efficiently to accommodate both Sunflower and Howell’s menus.
There will be a counter (because Howell’s has always had a counter, Grillo said) plus additional tables and tables with leaves, accommodating about 45 guests at once. That's slightly less than the 50 seats Howell’s currently has. Two separate registers will keep lines moving.
Howell’s Cafe and the Sunflower Cafe will both close on Nov. 23 and, after the transformation, will reopen on Dec. 5, if all goes well. Since they’re closing right before Thanksgiving, a busy travel time for many, some sort of grand reopening is planned for the week before Christmas, Grillow said, like when they celebrated the cafe's 50th anniversary.
Howell’s historyWhat many customers don’t know, and some lifetime Goshen residents do, is that Howell’s in the 1950s was located across the street, in the spot Sunflower currently occupies. For the first few years, the luncheonette was called "The Pantry," and was connected to an ice cream shop, Ackerley’s Confectionary Store and Ice Cream Parlor (now Joe’s Fix Its). That was before the owners, “Footsie” Howell and his brother Carlton, moved their cafe to where it is now and changed the name to Howell’s.
“So it’s kind of going back home,” Grillo said. “It’s going back to the sunny side of the street. They always get the sun, and we don’t.”
Ultimately, she said, the decision to merge the two businesses “felt right." And many of their customers go to both cafes already. For example, a guest may grab a juice or smoothie at the Sunflower and then come to Howell’s for lunch.
Now, it’ll be one-stop shopping for all of their customers.
‘Preserving Howell’s’While there's plenty of history at Howell’s current location, and it’s sad that era is ending, Grillo said the restaurant's real legacy is Howell’s itself. Grillo and her husband met at Howell’s. The cook has been onboard for 24 years, and many of the staff members are long-timers too. Grillo is sure Howell’s will remain the place Goshenites have come to know and love.
“It’s not like we’re around the corner," she said. We’re right across the street from where it was. So that warm feeling of when you come in and Desha has your juice and coffee already poured and on your table because she knows that’s how you like it, will continue to happen. The cook who knows that you don’t like peppers in something, he’s still going to know that.
“It’s not like it’s changing. It’s actually preserving Howell’s. We’re preserving that fact that we can continue the name and legacy of Howell’s as a breakfast/lunch place that’s an affordable breakfast/lunch place, a family-oriented place.”