Happy Hour Inn’s Darr to retire, reflects on over 40 years serving community

        
You’ll never make it here.
       
That’s what owner, Miles “Harvey” Fabian, told Candy Darr at the Happy Hour Inn on an evening in December 1983 after she had cut her hand on a bottle and needed to go to the hospital.
       
It was Darr’s first day at the establishment after being hired as a part-time, weekends-only bartender and cook.
       
Fast forward nearly 42 years later, Darr is retiring from full-time work at the Happy Hour Inn later this month after serving thousands of people in the Oak Harbor community.
       
“At that time, I needed a job,” Darr said. “I said, ‘I'll try it.’ So I did. I was working Fridays and Saturdays, and somebody had quit, so then I was able to get on nights during the week. And then I just started feeling comfortable, and I just never left.”
       
A community staple for nearly 100 years, the Happy Hour Inn was owned by Fabian and his wife, Connie, and Darr worked with them until they sold the business in 2006. Since then, she has worked for two other ownership groups.
       
Although a lot has changed since 1983, Darr said the job has been enjoyable because of the people.
       
“Just the conversations, the laughs, everything about it,” she said. “We had pool leagues, and we'd have a blast at that. A lot has changed since then. It was really busy until 2:30 in the morning. You'd have to kick them out. We’d turn the bright lights on, they don't like that. But now, it's just changed so much that they can close after the kitchen closes now. It's just unreal.”
       
A 1978 product of Oak Harbor High School, Darr worked as a file clerk at Davis-Besse after graduation, but then she got laid off. She then tried a factory job, but didn’t like that and was eventually laid off again.
       
Then, Darr started babysitting for her brother and sister-in-law, and she would stop by the Happy Hour Inn after she was done doing that and have a couple beers. Harvey approached her about a job, and she accepted. She was 23-years-old at the time.
       
“I can't believe time went that fast,” Darr said. “It’s unreal. I remember a lot of businesses. I'm going to miss it. I’m ready, though.”
       
Darr said she isn’t completely done, and that she’ll work two days a week, but foot and back issues don’t allow her to stand for long periods of time and her days of working 40 hours a week are finished.
       
“I get to do anything I want,” Darr said of retirement. “I'm going to do vacations. I'm not going to be a snowbird (though). I just went to Florida for a week, and I couldn't wait to get back home. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I went to Fort Myers and the traffic was just terrible. I just wanted my country roads back.”
 
Memories
       
While down in Fort Myers, Darr visited with some old Oak Harbor friends, including Fabian, who is a snowbird down there.
       
The pair made some great memories during their time together at the Happy Hour Inn, including the Apple Fest, Ohio State-Michigan games, decorating an elk for Christmas and just the general things and people that made the place special.
       
“There’s quite a few memories,” Darr said. “Harvey himself was just a hoot, and his friends. There’s just so many things.”
       
Darr’s first Apple Fest included what Fabian called a “Rally in the Alley,” where she worked in the back of a pickup truck with a horse trough full of beer and ice, while Fritz Jensen played records on the roof.
       
“The place was packed out there,” she said. “Then they found out that the cops didn’t like that too well, so Harvey rented a tent the next year. Well, somebody would walk out of the tent with their beer and get arrested because it was outside. That’s when he decided just to bring them inside and pack them in here. It was wall-to-wall just packed in here. That was a good time.”
       
Darr said the Ohio State-Michigan football game days were a great time. One year even included patrons celebrating an Ohio State victory by going outside on the street and climbing on a semi, which was driven by someone they knew. The antics stopped traffic, and Darr said they were “having a ball.”
       
Another staple of Darr’s time at the Happy Hour Inn was Della Favro, who spent 30 years working there and made home-cooked meals for the patrons, including muskrat.
       
“I tried it,” Darr said. “I just can’t get past the muskrat. You know … eating muskrat. Everybody said it was wonderful. To me it was muskrat.”
       
Favro also made pickled beef tongue and heart.         
       
“She had this big glass container,” Darr said. “And she would put that in there, and it would sit behind the bar and people would eat that up like crazy. You’d give them saltine crackers with it. And they would buy that and just sit there and eat that.”
       
Fridays meant roast beef, home fries and gravy.
       
“This place filled up for lunch,” Darr said. “A whole bunch of Davis-Besse people used to come in here just for the roast beef, home fries and gravy.”
       
That stopped when Harvey sold the business in 2006.
       
The new town administrator in Oak Harbor even asked recently if they’re bringing it back, but it likely isn’t in the cards.
       
“We never brought it back, but people really miss it,” Darr said.
       
Another concoction that is still around is taco salad on Thursdays, which is the combination of a taco salad for lunch, the idea of Harvey’s wife, Connie, and Della’s homemade chili.
       
“We would just put the nacho chips on the plate, the lettuce and tomatoes, and then her chili on top with the shredded cheese and sour cream,” Darr said. “We had five platters when they started that, and we would have to wait for people to get done with their meal. It got so big and then bigger and bigger. We’d wash them up quickly and serve the next person. Then Harvey and Connie finally decided we better buy more platters.”
       
A longtime feature of the Happy Hour Inn was a stuffed, mounted elk that dated back to its demise in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Darr believes it was tagged in 1932 and hung inside the bar from 1940 to 2006.
       
Darr and the crew used to decorate the elk for Christmas.
       
“It was so pretty and unbelievable,” she said. “Everybody would come in and just rave over that.”
       
Another tradition was giving out shots of blackberry brandy for colds.
       
“We said it would cure them,” Darr said. “There was one gentleman. He was older, and he'd say he had a cold just to get a shot of blackberry brandy. Then he'd take the pepper shaker and just put that pepper in there, and he would drink it down, and he'd start sweating. He'd go, ‘I'm going to sweat that out.’”
 
Crowd sizes
       
Darr said the biggest change since she started has been the crowds.
       
“(When I started), we’d open at 7 a.m.,” she said. “We’d get third-shift people and they would come in and drink, or the morning people who’d just get coffee. Then, you would get the afternoon crowd, the second-shift factory workers. I would get the night crowd, like the people that got off at 11 o'clock. We would stay open until 2:30 a.m. for them.”
       
Now, Darr said people don’t stay out late anymore. She believes some are afraid of getting DUIs, but the crowds just aren’t what they used to be in general.
       
“I remember Apple Festivals where we would have three bartenders and this place was wall-to-wall people,” she said. “People back here would hand their money up to the bar and then we get the drinks and they’d hand the drinks back to these people. It was just phenomenal. I just can't believe in how it's changed. It gets busy still, but it's nothing like (it was).”
 
Serving People
       
Darr does it all at the Happy Hour Inn, serving the drinks, cooking burgers, waiting tables, cleaning dishes, making pizzas, etc., sometimes all by herself for periods of time.
       
“Sometimes you get a lot of people (coming in) and most of them are real patient,” she said. “For one person to do everything (is a lot) because you have to run back where the pizza is, and if somebody wants a burger off that table you have to run up here and watch the burger. But most of the people are really patient because they know I'm the only one here.”
       
One reason Darr believes she has been around over 40 years is that she enjoys serving people.
       
“I just like making them food,” she said. “They're spoiled. They're very spoiled here. I had one guy come in and he says, ‘I want a child's portion.’ I'm going to put a curtain up over there so he can't see what the hell I'm doing. But, you know, they're just, well we want this, so I'll make it for them. ‘How about your meatloaf? We like your meatloaf, why don't you make it for us?’
       
“I just like serving people, making them happy, I guess … some of them. There was a sign in here when I first started, and it hung above the back door there. (It said) everyone brings happiness to this place, some when they come and some when they go. And that's the truth.
       
“I just like making people happy. And sometimes, you know, I get irritated, and the usuals in here, I'll snap at them. I got one guy that calls me the old war horse, and I didn't know how to take that. He goes, ‘That's good, that's good.’ I'm like, I don't think that's good.”
       
Darr shifted to nights for many years shortly after starting, but a while back she decided the day shift was where she wanted to be, and she remains there today.
       
“I couldn’t tell you how many years I worked nights,” she said. “It was a lot, and then the daytime shift came open and Harvey still wanted me on nights because I kind of controlled the crowd. So a girlfriend of mine took the days, but then she quit.
       
“(Eventually), I said, ‘Harvey I can't take nights anymore.’ (The crowds) were getting younger … I was uncomfortable. I said, ‘I think I’ve had it up to here with nights, I think I want days.’ So I went to days, and I've been here ever since.”
       
Darr served her classmates from Oak Harbor earlier in her tenure, and now she’s serving their kids.
       
“I don’t want to be here for their grandkids,” she joked.
       
Darr’s last day full-time is March 28. Following that, she’ll be there on Wednesdays and Thursdays. She said she is appreciative of the current ownership group, and she’ll always be there to assist them.
       
“They’re a wonderful family,” she said. “They’re great people to work for.”