Nibbles: Randall’s
Pie is a popular item on the menu at Randall’s Restaurant in Perryopolis.
Waitress Teresa Gallagher serves customers lunch at Randall’s Restaurant in Perryopolis.
Randall’s Restaurant in Perryopolis
By Rick Shrum
Photos by Celeste Van Kirk
Three decades ago, Tom Hadadich and Beth Berkebile were siblings with careers 300 miles from their Fayette County roots. He was a computer programmer in Philadelphia, she was a music teacher in Reading, and they were satisfied with their Eastern Pennsylvania existences.
Then the call came: Randall’s Restaurant was for sale, and Uncle Randall and Aunt Helen asked whether they were interested. They were, but sister and brother needed time to ponder, talk, ponder and talk . . . before ultimately going for it.
Three decades later, it remains a joyous homecoming. Beth and Tom returned to Perryopolis in 1988 to maintain, sustain and entertain the enterprise their aunt and steelworker uncle launched in 1951. And, from all appearances, they have carried out their mission. Randall’s Restaurant, 68 years young, remains as fast-paced as the Route 51 traffic zipping past their oft-crowded parking lot.
Change is a necessity in any endeavor, yet the key to Randall’s longevity and popularity, Berkebile says, is the owners’ loyalty to the policies their predecessors – Randall Evans and Helen Hadadich – embraced for 37 years.
“We have the exact recipes we’ve always had – my grandmother’s,” she said. “Everything is homemade. Everything is fresh. A restaurant is not going to last long if you serve canned soup or boxed potatoes. We try to offer quality food at a fair price. Some of our specials feature meat, potato and a vegetable and cost only $7.50.”
Breakfast, lunch and dinner are available at Randall’s, which is open from 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily. And that is almost, literally, daily. Berkebile said she and her brother close the restaurant for a week during the Christmas season and on July 4 and Easter. It is open for the other 356 days.
Randall’s offers three or four specials daily, Berkebile said, adding proudly that, “We’re Slovak and we have Slovak dishes.” Those selections include pierogies and halushki on Fridays, kolbassi on Wednesdays and cabbage rolls on Sunday. “We sell out of cabbage rolls every Sunday,” she said.
Desserts are delightful and delightfully varied. There are 15 selections of homemade pies, whole or by the slice, a cake-of-the-day and ice cream options, including the classic banana split.
Beth and Tom are equal owners who likewise share duties. Tom, she said, works mostly in the kitchen and handling orders, while she is primarily responsible for staffing, accounting and scheduling. “You can always see one of us at the register,” Berkebile said. “We’re here together most days, but alternate weekends.”
Their work schedules remain intense, but they have scaled back. “In the beginning, we worked every day from 6 (a.m.) to 8:30 (p.m.),” Berkebile said. “The idea was, ‘You work till you get it done.’ We don’t do that any longer.”
The owners have an ample workforce of 46 that is mostly part-time – and young. “We have a lot of high schoolers, and we’re very careful to work around their schedules,” Berkebile said, stressing that she and her brother strive to be employee-friendly.
“We offer them a good starting job. It’s important that younger people learn how to work. I have four children who have worked or are still working here.”
Operating a business in Perryopolis, where they grew up and were educated in the Frazier schools, have given Berkebile and Hadadich an appreciation for their customers as well. Beth said they have a core of loyal patrons, some of whom dine there twice in a day. The restaurant also attracts a fair share of commuters, heading to Uniontown and other Laurel Highlands destinations.
Randall’s sits at the base of a hill, highly visible along the northbound side of the busy highway known colloquially as Pittsburgh Road. And while it has been a fixture at that location for more than a half-century, the restaurant did not start there. A bypass, diverting traffic from the center of the borough, was built in the early 1950s and forced the building’s relocation.
“My aunt and uncle put it on a flatbed truck and moved it,” Berkebile said. The move was only a bit problematic, for Randall’s was originally a diner – much smaller than it is today. It also had a different name, which Beth believes was Maundy’s Corner (spelling uncertain). That morphed into Randall’s BBQ, before the eatery assuming its current identity.
It has, indeed, been a happy homecoming for Tom Hadadich and Beth Berkebile. “We feel extremely blessed,” she said, “to have very good people who work here and come in to eat, sometimes two times a day.”