Longtime Middletown restaurant closes

A Middletown restaurant abruptly shut down this month — so far without explanation.

Dad’s Family Restaurant at 3131 S. Main St. served its last meal on June 17, then placed a “closed” sign in the window, thanking customers for their patronage.

There was no mention, either on the building itself or its Facebook page, of why the Engle’s Corner restaurant closed its doors nor any mention of it reopening under new ownership. Calls to the restaurant elicited only a busy signal.

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Dad’s, a mix of a diner and a homestyle country kitchen, started out in the early 1990s as Sunshine Cafe and then cut ties with the franchise to become Kelly’s Cafe & Bar in 1996. That restaurant closed in the spring of 2001 before it was reopened as Dad’s Family Restaurant with Mom’s Touch in September of that year.