Search
Font size: A A A
Search10th Anniversary of The Pretzel Place
While a lot of businesses struggle to hit the 10-year mark, The Pretzel Place is thriving.
Both owners Beth and Brad have volunteered for many city events. Brad has been organizing the food vendors for many community events including Fall Fest, Bringing Back Business, the Farmers Market, Taylor Swift Avenue, Willie Wonka, Christmas Tree Lighting and the Barbie Box. His role included planning, writing menus, contacting the Health Department, collecting the money, organizing volunteers, and helping with the set-up and take-down of the booth.
All of their pretzels are made by them fresh every day. Brad makes the dough and Beth twists every pretzel by hand and then into the oven it goes. Brad’s experience as a trained chef coupled with Beth’s business degree from the University of Kentucky make them the power couple on the Avenue.
While the pretzels are consistently good, Brad uses his training to create homemade soups, salads and specials that change weekly. Then comes the homemade desserts.
September 16, 2026 will be remembered as not only their 10th anniversary celebration but also their busiest day ever in their 10-year run.
Fall Fest Wrap Up
I met our Public Services Department at the Beach Park at 7:30 a.m. in the rain to begin setting up tables, tents, hay bales, chair decorations, and more. They were present all through the event and handled many problems that arose. Most of the set up was done in the rain. I cannot give enough credit to our Public Works department for making the event so successful.
Jack and Danielle Ondeck came the day before the event to start setting up all of the Halloween decorations for the haunted playground. They returned on Friday shortly after 8 AM to do the final setup.
Many thanks to Jon McClain for driving the police trailer to pick up the hay and pumpkins. When we were leaving, Jon saw some cornstalks and orange flowers that could be added to the decorations around the giant beach chair. He purchased and donated them and boy did it make a big difference. Kinman Farms gave us $75.00 off of the bill and agreed to buy back the straw when we were finished using it. They are extremely nice to our Police Department and city.
The police hayride is one of the biggest draws to our event. Chief Jon McClain really enjoys decorating the trailer and making children’s first experience with the police a very positive one. Jon also returned the straw bales back to the farm.
A request for volunteers went out, and as always, Jim McPhail volunteered.
Many thanks to my wife who accompanied me when purchasing the 225 Halloween buckets from four places, along with setting up and purchasing items for the S’mores booth. She then ran the booth with the help from two of our children, Danny and Beth, along with three of our grandchildren, Ethan, Jack and Allie.
My son, Mike, came to help tear down the haunted playground and more. We used all 500 wooden sticks at the S’mores booth that we had purchased. This year we put concrete paving stones under the portable fire pits and did not burn the table.
Two years ago, one of the young volunteers from St. Catherine’s School came up to Melissa Morandi and told her she needed to come to the S’mores table because there was a problem. Melissa told her that she would come after she was done with something else. The girl said you need to come now, the table caught fire.
I arrived at the table a few minutes after Melissa and the metal container that was the portable fire pit heated up and melted a hole thru the table and fell to the ground under the table. There was no fire and we found bricks in the park landscaping to keep the others from burning thru. No drama this year as we learn by our mistakes.
Many thanks to Gold Star for setting up the food booth at our event. It is getting harder to find food trucks and restaurants that are willing to set up. Thanks also to Dave Fessler and the BEF for supplying Bourbon drinks which I sorely needed one right before the event ended. Darkness is another Bellevue business I can count on to elevate any event into a party.
Jenny Watson from Read Ready and her nephew, Wilson VonHandorf, handed out most of the Halloween buckets along with Read Ready literature. By the time another Read Ready member Julie Fisher arrived as scheduled there were only around 30 remaining to give out. By 6:03 p.m. all were gone.
Terry Hatton sponsored the pumpkin booth and his wife and family gave out pumpkins to the first 300 children to come to our pumpkin patch. All six of our council members worked together as a team to pass out candy. I was very surprised to see that Ed Gallrein who is running for the House of Representatives show up for our event.
Fall Fest was a big hit for everyone. It attracted a lot of people, and many of them visited our stores and restaurants.