IT’S ALE OVER!
RIDDLE ALE HOUSE HITS END OF LINE, WILL SOON CLOSE ON BALTIMORE PIKE
Current Riddle Ale House owner Arnold Pompei with his daughter Gina Davis. On the wall between them is Ale House founder Arnold Pompei, who started the business his son eventually took over. Not pictured is Arnold’s son Nick and wife JoAnne, who also work at the restaurant.
MIDDLETOWN » For more than 50 years the Riddle Ale House stood as a fixture of West Baltimore Pike in Middletown. The restaurant has not only supported three generations of the Pompei family, who have owned the establishment since its opening in 1962, but has been a local favorite for people craving one of their iconic roast beef sandwiches and good brews to wash it all down with.
It has been a constant business before and after the golden age of the sprawling Granite Run Mall complex and remains one of the final holdouts at that shopping center as it undergoes a mass renovation to a mixed-use development space.
But in the coming weeks, the Riddle Ale House will be no more.
Owner Arnold Pompei confirmed that he has sold the business and property and that there are no plans to open at another location.
When reached for comment at the restaurant Friday afternoon he admitted that it was a hard topic to discuss.
“It’s the right time chronologically, the right time financially and the right time emotionally,” said Pompei, who has been working at the restaurant for more than 50 years. “I don’t want to go into too much detail but honestly, it’s not easy for me to talk about it. I’ve been here a long time and it’s a family business. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means.”
Pompei’s son, Nick, who manages the restaurant, said Riddle Ale House has been a point of pride that makes it hard to see the doors close.
“It’s more scary and exciting than anything,” said Nick. “I’m definitely going to miss it, but I’m not going to miss the headaches of running something that’s this large.”
The family bloodlines of the business go back to Arnold Pompei’s father, also named Arnold, who opened the Riddle Ale House. The younger Arnold Pompei got his start in the restaurant in his early teens before taking over after his father’s death about 20 years ago. At present, Pompei’s wife, JoAnne, son, Nick, and daughter, Gina Davis, all work at the restaurant in addition to about 50 other staff members, some who have worked there for decades.
Noting the difficulty of the business for a restaurant to stay open for as long as they have, Nick elaborated on what attributed to their long-standing success.
“It’s the casual, fun, laid-back atmosphere,” he said. That hasn’t kept just staffers there for as long as they have, but the customers, too. He added that the holidays was a special time when the restaurant would be decorated with garland and other festive items that gave the feel of walking into someone’s home.
And of course there’s the roast beef sandwich, the foundation of the business, said Arnold.
The restaurant will be closing, but customers won’t be without that roast beef sandwich for long when Arnold and Nick open up a small sandwich shop in Media in the summer where they’ll bring that recipe with them.
With the door open to a new business venture for the Pompeis, they had to realize the crumbling business that came around the Ale House.
As the Granite Run Mall slowly declined in the last 10 years before its sale to BET Investments in 2013 and its closure in 2015, other local eateries had long gone under including the Log Cabin and Country House. Nick said the holiday shopping season was a barometer that gauged how business for the restaurant was going.
“I remember the first couple of Christmases (after the closing)... now we saw when the mall was jumping and people would go there. We were definitely getting a boost from that,” Nick said. “It has gradually declined, obviously … and once it was closed we could definitely see a difference around the holidays. It was still good, better than normal, but not as good as it used to be. Think about it,
there were thousands and thousands of people who would go to that mall.”
Arnold said businesses have to weather the ups and downs.
“It’s not an easy business to stay in that long,” he said. “You hang in and plug away.”
In a 2013 Delco Times story about BET Investments’ purchase of the mall, Arnold said he would not sell
his business.
“He refuses to leave and retire and let me run everything,” Nick laughingly said about his dad. He saw the stress building in his now 66-yearold father and when the offers started coming in to buy the property he wanted his dad to do what was right for his health. “It’s a love-hate relationship with him and this place. He still doesn’t know if he’s making the right decision.”
“It’s time,” Arnold said. “The business wears you down.”
Arnold said he will hopefully retire
when the restaurant closes.
Growing up in the Riddle Ale House, Nick said he looks forward to taking all that he has learned there about cooking and managing to the smaller, yetto-be named sandwich shop coming to Media. Before that, Arnold thanked all of their Riddle Ale House customers for such a successful run.
“I’d like to thank everybody that has ever come here over the years, and for the people that I’m sure we’ve disappointed, you never can make everybody happy. We’ve tried, we’ve always tried,” said Arnold.