Griddles Cafe in Medina is a simple place.
The beige walls a display modern artwork, mixed in with a United States flag featuring the seals of each of our country’s military branches, advertisements for biscuits and gravy and T-shirts representing the restaurant that have a $20 price tag.
“It’s All Good!” the shirts say across the back.
“Are we doing sweet teas?” waitress Nicole Jackson says to a customer seated in the back corner of the restaurant before she yells back to her mother, one of the owners of the cafe in the kitchen.
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“I’ve lived here my whole life,” Jackson says. “It’s not as small as it used to be. But most of the people are nice here.”
The cafe is tucked into a shopping plaza that’s near a bevy of chain restaurants on North Court Street in Medina. In some ways, it’s the perfect metaphor for Medina. It’s a growing city that still finds a way to have a small-town feel, even if that feel can be fleeting at times. “Did you know that? They’re tearing down our Kmart. It was the first Super Kmart in the United States,” Tiffany Thorpe, another server at the cafe, says from across the small dining room. “They’re making way for a Meijer.”
In a world where so many things have become automated, artificial intelligence seemingly ruling all, Thorpe can be seen pulling out a calculator, and not the one on her phone, to add up a customer’s bill. On this side of town, Griddles Cafe stands out next to the corporate restaurants and stores it shares the area with.
Leaving Griddles and turning left out of the parking lot can take you on a journey to what feels like a different city inside the same town. Heading south on North Court Street is like driving straight through a time machine, with Harding Street being the stark divider between the small town and the typical suburb.
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Things change when you cross Harding Street. Life seems to slow down as the historic Medina Square approaches. Target, Chipotle and Chick-fil-A turn into places like Cool Beans Cafe, Circles on the Square and The Farmer’s Table. Corporations quickly give way to locally owned and operated shops and restaurants that have a touch of charm that cannot be mass-produced.
That’s what this part of Medina is. It’s a slice of home, even if it’s not your home.
“To me, it’s not tiny, but it’s not huge. Everybody kind of knows each other and the community, they will pitch in and help somebody,” says Melissa Sandusky, owner of Circles on the Square. “There’s somebody who has a fire, or if something happened — people will pitch in to help people that they don’t know.”
Sandusky is one of the success stories in that area. She isn’t a native of Medina but moved to the city 24 years ago and has lived in three different homes. There’s been more than enough in Medina that has made her want to live here.
Small towns can be stereotyped as being boring. In movies and television shows, characters are programmed to want to get out and find the big city with so much more to do. That’s not how people in Medina feel.
“There’s always stuff to do,” Thorpe says.
That’s a common theme when talking to people inside the city limits. There aren’t complaints about Medina being boring; there are boasts about things going on every weekend. It’s difficult to walk through the town square without passing a window filled with fliers for events. Something’s Popping, a local popcorn shop, has a window decorated with those fliers and an interior filled with hard-to-find candy.
“It’s like a town in a Hallmark movie,” says Brittany Ceifert, a bartender at The Farmer’s Table, a restaurant just south of the square.
That’s what Medina is. It’s a community that supports itself and has everything one could need. If the amenities and structure of corporations comfort you, head north of the town square. If the small-town vibe is what you’re in search of, Medina Public Square is for you.
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