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This spring marks 80 years since brothers Michael and Samuel Minard began cooking together as the business that became Minard's Spaghetti Inn.
Minard's Spaghetti Inn was established in 1937 by Michael and Rose Minard, serving the first plate of spaghetti in their personal dining room on the original Minard family table. In 1938, Samuel Minard, along with his wife Agnes, joined the business. Rose and Agnes, who were sisters, worked as the chefs of the business.
The two couples lived together in the Minard family home, where the restaurant is still located today
"The stories repeat what my father has passed down to us," said Michael Minard, a member of the restaurant's third generation. "My favorite story is that when he was little, people would walk through his room to use the bathroom while he was doing homework. I always thought that was kind of cool."
Expansions and renovations to the original family home have expanded the restaurant to its current seating capacity of 120 guests.
"My understanding is that they dug out the bottom of the house and sold the dirt to create the dining room," Minard said.
Minard's sister, Marisa Rios, remembers when the now enclosed dining room was the restaurant's entrance porch.
"We would do our homework here, and we would look out the window and watch people wreck over the hill," she said.
"In the '80s, I believe it was, is when they added the lobby where you come in today," Minard added.
Their father, Joe Minard, son of Michael and Rose Minard, stepped into managing the restaurant in the early 1950s. His first cousin, Tressa, daughter of Samuel and Agnes Minard, joined in the 1960s.
"When my father was 17, he was discharged from the...