An everlasting love The Little Grill returns with familiar management and patrons

By LUKE FREISNER The Breeze

The doors of The Little Grill open and customers are greeted with a smile from one of the employees. This is how patrons have started their mornings, lunch breaks and family dinners since the 1940s. For the last 30 years, customers have been greeted not only with a smile, but with a pink heart on the wall and three simple words: “I love you.”

Ron Copeland is a JMU alumnus and regular customer turned employee turned owner of The Little Grill. While Copeland currently owns the restaurant, he was in the back washing dishes to help cover a shift for one of his employees. The sounds of water running over pots and pans and “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads playing through speakers, filled the room.

“I’ve always had a weird attachment to [The Little Grill] , honestly, even when I was in college and didn’t work here,” Copeland said.

Copeland said he first bought the restaurant when he was 25 without much experience in business or restaurants at the time, he’s now 55. In July 2003, after Copeland had owned the restaurant for a while, The Little Grill shifted into a workerowned collective. However, after briefly shutting down last September, Copeland bought back the restaurant and finally reopened in March 2023.

“I don’t really care about restaurants that much,” Copeland said. “I care about The Grill.”

The customer’s always right

Jeremy Houts, a regular at The Little Grill since he was a teenager, exemplifies the kind of people who call this restaurant home.

“You rarely meet anyone in here that’s rude or not willing to talk to you,” Houts said.

When looking for restaurants with consistently high quality food, Houts said there aren’t many places that match his go-to spot. Houts said this distinct jump in quality comes from the ingredients sourced from the mennonite and local farm communities and making of dishes from scratch. One aspect of The Little Grill that keeps Houts and his wife coming back year after year is the comforting charm that’s hard to come by in other establishments, he said.

“It always feels like family here,” Houts said.

The family business

The Little Grill isn’t just important to the Copeland family —the two are intrinsically linked. The Copelands own the house right behind the restaurant. While working at The Little Grill, Ron said his boss told him to hire a new dishwasher, the first time he’d ever hired someone. That someone was Mel Copeland, now his wife of 29 years. Ron said they didn’t start dating right away, but they always carried a torch for one another. It wasn’t until Ron came back and bought the restaurant later that they finally got together.

“We’ve lived in the house next door for 23 years, my family works here, I met my wife here,” Ron said, pointing to the pink heart above the coffee bar.

“That pink heart up there? I left that for my wife 30 years ago,” he said

Rose Copeland, Ron’s daughter and current employee at The Little Grill, shared her experience working at the family business and her memories surrounding the diner she’s grown up with.

“My dad used to cook with me on his back,” Rose said.

Rose also said she’s met her boyfriend as well as some of her closest friends at The Little Grill, saying it’s just a place that attracts awesome people. When asked what she believes makes The Little Grill so special, she sighed, gesturing over to her father asking, “Did he mention the term ‘grill magic’ to you?”

‘Grill magic’

Ron laughed to himself while describing why The Little Grill is so special to him and the community of locals who’ve chosen to eat here for the last 80 years.

“There’s magic to it, but if you look too close you won’t find it.” Ron said. “We don’t know what it is, but we want to be here.” see LITTLE GRILL, page 12 from LITTLE GRILL , page 11

Who’s to say if there’s such a thing as “grill magic ,” or if a little local diner has an influence that keeps bringing the community back to the table for generations. Maybe the secret ingredient of The Little Grill is love. The same secret ingredient that turned this tiny local diner into a family business, the secret ingredient that brought a community together to keep the lights on, and the secret ingredient that greets you with a warm smile and a pink heart on the wall with three simple words: “I Love You .” harrisonburgmill.com

CONTACT Luke Freisner at freisnlx@dukes.jmu.edu. For more on the culture, arts and lifestyle of the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the culture desk on Twitter and Instagram @Breeze_Culture.