06/29/2025
After nearly six decades of serving this community, the time has finally come. Hale’s Restaurant has quietly closed its doors for the last time.
This is not a decision made lightly. And it is not the goodbye we hoped for. Truthfully, we wish we could have offered a goodbye in person, a chance to pour one more cup of coffee, serve one more plate of biscuits and gravy, share one more conversation across the counter. But the time has come.
Hale’s was opened in 1967 by Jim and Margie Hale, two people who believed in good food, hard work, and who wanted to create the kind of place where neighbors gather like family. They took a leap of faith and turned that dream into a reality. After Margie’s death in 2001, her daughter Sandra, along with Gary and Cindy Hale, kept the restaurant running until the time came in 2013 when the family had to make a choice between selling or keeping the restaurant. Sandra decided to move forward as the sole owner of Hale’s and has run the business singlehandedly ever since.
For over twenty years, Sandra has poured her heart, sweat, and soul into this place. Nearly 70 years old now, she still works six days a week back in the kitchen and spends her “day off” buried in the behind the scenes labor that keeps the business operating. But its all become too much. Her health, along with the weight of running a small business in today’s economy, have made it abundantly clear that it is time to retire.
To our beloved customers: thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for your loyalty, your kindness, your stories, your patience, and all of the laughter. This community has been the backbone of Hale’s through everything we’ve survived over the years, including a fire, vandalism, a recession, theft, and even a global pandemic. Your unwavering support, encouragement, and generosity is what allowed us to fight through the hard times to get back to doing what we loved most: sharing meals with our neighbors. We have always prided ourselves on the community within a community we’ve built. So many of you got your first job here. So many of you raised your kids on our pancakes. So many of you made this place, this little mom & pop restaurant, feel like home, like family.
To our staff, both past and present, you were never just employees. Anyone who’s worked at Hale’s can tell you that we’re all just one big family. You brought spirit, hustle, laughter, and chaos, and you made this place come alive. All of you have left a mark and we will treasure the memories made inside those four walls for years to come. Thank you to every single employee who truly made Hale’s a family restaurant.
And so, it is with a heavy, but deeply grateful heart that we say goodbye for the last time.
Thank you. We love you. We’ll miss you.
-Hale’s
