Coldwater Turns 30
Acclaimed restaurant celebrates milestone with a dining room glow-up and free tea cakes
If prizes were given for restaurant innovation, Coldwater Cafe would bring home the gold.
The restaurant hits 30 years in business this Thursday, February 4. But owner and manager Nick Hoover isn’t resting on his laurels.
Instead, he’s celebrating by tearing apart his dining room and putting it back together from scratch.
“It was time for a change,” says Nick. “We needed more space and more flexibility in our seating. We were also ready for a brighter, more open feel in the main room.”
The renovation, which was completed on Monday, involved tearing down a large divider wall, walling up a staircase, ripping out booth seating, adding banquette seating, and laying new carpet. The result will be an open floor plan, 100 square feet of new space, and two to three new tables.
“Two new tables may not sound like a lot,” says Nick. “But when you have 20 tables to start with, that’s a 10% increase in seating. That means a lot for a restaurant.”
This isn’t Nick’s first time shaking things up at Coldwater.
In fact, the past 25 years read like a Harvard Business School playbook for business innovation.
For example, there was the decision in 2008 to stop renting Coldwater’s original space at the corner of Second and Main in downtown Tipp, and buy instead. Nick and crew purchased a new building and embarked on a bold renovation—turning what was once a Fifth Third bank into a working restaurant.
Then there was the move in 2009 to build out an event space on the second floor of the building. The space, which seats 48, was christened “The Upper Plate”—a nod to the room’s previous incarnation as a dental office. Today, the space hosts birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, work meetings, and even weddings.
2015 saw Nick’s decision to step out of the kitchen and hand over the reins to Katy Evans, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute, as executive chef for the cafe. Katy now manages all things back-of-house, from creating menus, to overseeing food prep and quality, to managing the kitchen crew.
One big change that Katy brought was a focus on seasonal menus.
“Our goal with each menu is to use more and more local resources when sourcing ingredients,” says Katy, “whether it be working with local farmers, local companies, or small businesses. We want to keep our dishes fresh and exciting while supporting our local communities. We do source out-of-state for certain meats such as ostrich, elk, lamb, and boar. But I’m now in conversations with local farmers here. So more to come on that!”
Katy’s oversight of back-of-house operations gave Nick time to focus on his next innovation.
And it was a big one: launching a wine and specialty foods market next door to Coldwater. Bodega opened its doors in 2016, with Nick and his wife Andrea Hoover serving as co-owners.
“We wanted to provide the same love and the same consistency in our food that people find at Coldwater,” says Andrea, “but in a grab-and-go setting. That’s why we created Bodega. People don’t always have time for a full Coldwater experience, but everyone deserves a night away from the kitchen. They can get that by picking up lunch or dinner at Bodega, knowing that everything is still hand-made at Coldwater.”
In 2019, Nick, Katy and Andrea took things in a truly unexpected direction: partnering with the Tipp City Public Library to create a shared dining and relaxing space in the alley between the two buildings. The collaboration added a 2,000-square-foot patio with outdoor seating for the restaurant, open April through October, plus couches and chairs where library patrons can sit outside. The alley got an additional boost in 2021 when library director Lisa Santucci commissioned Tipp City native Atalie Gagnet to design and paint a sidewalk-to-rooftop mural along the west side of the alley.
“Nick and I chat like two next-door neighbors,” says Lisa, “asking how things are going. A while back I mentioned to Nick about an idea to paint a mural and he was talking about issues with his upstairs patio. He said offhand, ‘too bad we can’t eat right here.’ The alley concept was created in that moment.”
“One of my favorite memories is of when the mural was being painted. People sitting outside at Coldwater would come and watch Atalie as she worked. Several donations to help with the cost of the mural came from Coldwater guests!
“It just goes to show that sometimes a small conversation between two neighbors can lead to something quite amazing and profound for everyone.”
In 2022, Katy volunteered to compete in the area’s first Diced in Dayton Chef’s Challenge. The competition, featuring 11 area chefs, raised money for Miami Valley Meals, a program that helps prepare meals for those serving the hungry in the region.
Katy walked away with top honors, creating two impromptu dishes: pork toast and shrimp street tacos with bacon jam, pickled onions and peppers. Oh, by the say, she did this while she was seven months pregnant.
Katy says that “a little bit of everything” inspires her menu choices. “I read a lot of cookbooks, follow a lot of famous and home chefs on social media, dine out when I can, visit specialty markets, and test a lot of ideas on my husband. You never know if something is going to work together until you try it, and there's nothing better than when it surprises you. I love it when customers say to me how unexpected a dish was and how they were ‘wowed’ by it. That drives me to do even more.”
What’s next for Coldwater? This week, it’s baking lots and lots of buttery tea cakes, Coldwater’s signature dessert. A free tea cake will be given out to anyone dining in the restaurant this Thursday, in honor of the restaurant’s 30-year anniversary.
After that, the sky’s the limit. “I’m incredibly humbled when I look at the success of this place,” says Andrea, “and how beloved it is after all these years. That’s rare in the independent restaurant world.”
“Above all, it’s a testament to the team we have here, the food we make, and our amazing customers. It’s an atmosphere we create where people want to keep coming back.”
Katy concurs. “I just want to make people happy with my food. I want them to come back again and again. I want our restaurant to be the place they go to for incredible food, the place they go to for impeccable service, and the place they go to feel like family.
We can do that because I have a great team. They are the backbone of my success and the success of Coldwater Cafe. I couldn’t do this without them, and I wouldn’t want to. It wouldn’t be as fun and here at Coldwater, we live for fun.”
Coldwater Café is located at 19 E Main Street in Tipp City.
Milestones on the Menu
1994 – Coldwater Café opens
1998 – Nick Hoover becomes executive chef
2008 – CW purchases, renovates, and moves into old Fifth Third building
2009 – CW party room The Upper Plate opens on the second floor of the building
2015 – Katy Evans named CW executive chef
2016 – CW’s grab-and-go outlet, Bodega, opens next door
2019 – CW’s patio opens, creating a shared space between CW and the Tipp Library
2022 – Chef Evans wins Diced Dayton competition
2023 – CW builds out office space on its second floor, creating room on the first floor for a walk-in cooler and freezer and expanded food prep space
2024 – CW celebrates 30 years with a dining room renovation