The Red Barn Restaurant

Red Barn ablaze, October 20, 1968

I know that this is outside of the normal range for this blog, and that I don't usually write about topics this modern, but I couldn't help myself. Recent comments from Jack Walker in the Nostalgia Forum about the Red Barn Restaurant got me thinking about it, and I came up with a few things I wanted to share, without the chance of them getting buried in another page. For anyone who is not familiar with it, the Red Barn was a restaurant and cocktail lounge in the 1960's and 70's, located on Kirkwood Highway where the Best Buy is now. Actually, it was two restaurants, each one destined for ruin, the first one spectacularly so. The destruction of the first restaurant is probably what most people remember about the Red Barn today.

The original Red Barn was a dining establishment housed in....a big red barn. (Fortunate naming, huh?) It opened sometime in the early 1960's, but after 1961 (anyone know any more specific than that?). The aerial photo below shows the area that year, without even Farrand Drive yet in place. The barn can clearly be seen, with a drive coming back from Kirkwood Highway. [A side note -- the circular shape with something on its west side, about where Smith's Volkswagon is now, may have been, from what I gather, a trampoline park. Anyone remember this?] Who owned the farm (which probably extended north and west before the highway was built) is unclear, but judging by the 1940 Census, my two guesses are either Norman Klair or Jacob Maclary. They seem to be the first two farmers listed coming what I'm guessing to be west out of Marshallton.

Area around the Red Barn, 1961

Sometime in the early-to-mid-60's, the big, old, red barn was converted into a restaurant. Sadly, it didn't last very long. On the afternoon of Sunday, October 20, 1968, a fire broke out in the attic, over the second floor dining rooms. Mill Creek Fire Company was soon on the scene, as was a crowd of people drawn by the smoke and sirens. Luckily for us, that crowd included my parents, for whom we can thank for the pictures. My Mom especially remembers this, since it happened to have been her birthday. (Don't worry, I don't think they were planning on going there for dinner.) The fire devastated the structure, said in this newspaper account to have been 50 years old. This incarnation of the restaurant never reopened, and the barn was eventually torn down.


Although the red barn was gone, the Red Barn Restaurant was not. A new structure was built and reopened under the same name. Here's where I could use some help, but I don't think the second restaurant was open too much longer than the first. I believe that by the late 70's, it too was shut down. I had always thought that the second building had a fire, too, but I could be wrong about that. I may just be remembering the first fire through my parents. I know that the building stood vacant for a number of years, before being torn down to make way for the Channel Home Center. In the mid 90's, that store was torn down and replaced by the current Best Buy.