Stew Harrison's/Barrio

In 1932 the northeast corner of Grandview Avenue at Fifth Avenue was a miniature golf course, built with cinder fairways. Stuart (Stew) R. Harrison (1899 – 1982) was a 33-year-old with an appetite, as he indicated in a 1981 interview. "I figured that since I got hungry in the middle of the night, so did others," he said. So the entrepreneur bought the golf course and erected a 12 ft. x 12 ft. building (shown in a retouched 1946 drawing in this tour's cover photo), and opened what he called the Hamburger Construction Company. With his two-burner hot plate, he began making 4 in. hamburgers which he sold for 10 cents. He was eventually more successful than his first-day take of 67 cents, and over the next 24 years he expanded the small building four times and renamed the business Stew Harrison's. In 1956 he tore down all but three rooms and created a dining room, serving “American home-style foods”. A 1958 Columbus Dispatch newspaper advertisement for a “waitress and counter girl” at the restaurant required candidates to be at least “5 ft. 6 in. tall” presumably to see over the counter. By 1981, Stew Harrison’s had 25 employees serving over 400 meals a day. Harrison was elected president of the Ohio State Restaurant Association in 1957 and was serving as the association’s Treasurer when he died in 1982.  
Stew Harrison’s closed in 1984 and was replaced by a string of casual restaurants including Sister’s Chicken, Spaghetti Shoppe, Hoggy’s, and the Winking Lizard. During this time, the 1956 building was never demolished, just reconfigured. Barrio opened a taco restaurant on the site in Fall 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the custom “Day of the Dead” murals on the walls of Barrio, is a tribute to Dr. Amy Acton, former Ohio Department of Health Director, who led Ohio’s initial response efforts to COVID-19.       

Wood panels on the back wall of Stew Harrison's were carved with customer initials and names such as “Boozer”, “Jitter”, Mary Lou”; attesting to its destination as a late night date spot.

Interior of Stew Harrison's, circa 1955. 

Advertisement for Stew Harrison's from December 1960 Columbus Dispatch.  

Wall mural at Barrio painted during COVID-19 pandemic depicts Dr. Amy Action with white coat and mask in hand  (photo from barrio-tacos.com).