Miller's Bread-Basket
The owners, Ray and Susie Miller, moved to Blackville from northern Indiana about 40 years ago with several other Mennonite families. The Millers were looking for a quieter, more rural place to raise a family. They farmed some and grew their own vegetables, and he owned a paint and body shop.
"But he'd always wanted a family restaurant," Susie Miller said.
The restaurant is best known for its baked goods, and until the last few years, Ray Miller did all the baking. The Millers now have a baker who comes in early each morning to bake the breads sold fresh each day.
When you enter the restaurant, you walk through a line and look at all the foods available that day. On the day I visited, there was fried chicken, chicken livers, teriyaki baked chicken, beef stew and meat loaf, along with cabbage, carrots, beets, broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas and green beans.
I'd heard that the meat loaf, with a tomato stew topping, is one of the favorites at Miller's, but the fried chicken looked so delicious, I couldn't resist. I also had cabbage, broccoli casserole and beets. The chicken tasted as great as it looked, and I didn't leave any of the large serving of broccoli casserole. The beets were served whole with a sweet glaze. I also had a yummy bran muffin with a cherry topping. All of the servings were very generous.
If you have a sweet tooth, you don't want to skip dessert. A number of pies, including apple and German chocolate, were on the menu. I tried the restaurant's most popular pie, shoofly. It has a gooey bottom with a molasses filling, and a crumb topping. With a scoop of ice cream on top, it was heavenly. Susie Miller said her husband worked a long time to perfect the shoofly pie recipe, and "it is the best."
I also couldn't resist taking home a loaf of the cinnamon raisin bread. Susie Miller told me that if the bread got a bit stale, it was great for making French toast. There was no chance that bread would get stale at my house; it was gone in no time.
The breads are for sale in the gift shop next door, along with all sorts of interesting items from the past.
The restaurant is open for lunch Monday through Saturday and for dinner on Thursdays and Fridays. Go visit with a big appetite.
