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Taylor Pipes

@open.since

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On a quest to find every American family business open for more than 100 years.
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No World Series ticket? No problem! I watched Game 1 at a 102-year-old speakeasy instead. @kegelsinn located in West Allis opened in 1924 as a “soda pop parlor.” Downstairs was a brewery behind a trap door. Anna Kegel sewed secret pockets into her dresses to carry the whiskey, and in 1927 a tax agent busted the place by luring John Kegel outside to look at a car. A century later, the founders’ great-grandson runs it, and the beer garden was packed with three generations of Brewers fans losing their minds at every pitch. During the commercials, a German band played. Kegel’s has survived Prohibition, economic turbulence, World Wars, and the pandemic. Ingenuity and tradition have kept them pouring. Kegel’s Inn, Open Since 1924. Full story at the link in bio. #familybusiness #WestAllis #Brewers #WorldSeries by @open.since
20 family businesses. 5 still standing. 14 saying goodbye. Issue #4 of Still Standing: four businesses hitting 100 — a fishing-tackle maker in Rome, New York, a Muskegon chili-dog institution, a High Springs auto shop, and a Scottish florist handing over to its fourth generation — plus a 141-year-old Austin candy shop that came back from the dead. And the goodbyes: a 166-year-old Guernsey jeweler, a 122-year-old Yakima orchard, the Brooklyn shop that built the Corleone grave for The Godfather, and 11 more. Plus the ending everybody wants: Tire City of Bristol, PA — 67 years, sold family-to-family, and the whole Jones family stays on. Read Issue #4 — link in bio. Know a century-old family business, or one saying goodbye? DM @open.since Featuring: @gnlchilidogs @hendersonsflowers @lammes1885 @johnson_orchards_yakima @bpageandson @piscitelloshomecenter @wendtsonthelake ziofraedosvallejo by @open.since
This skillet company once survived by selling garden gnomes. In 1867, a teenager named Joseph Lodge walked more than 1,200 miles across the country. In 1896 he opened a foundry in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. In 1910 it burned to the ground, and 99 days later it was pouring iron again under a new name: @lodgecastiron Since then: a Depression spent casting gnomes and doorstops, a centennial nobody was sure they’d survive, and a 2002 decision to season every pan at the factory that grew the business more than tenfold. Six generations later, the family still owns it. Since 2019, an outside CEO has run it day to day, and he puts it this way: “We want to be that indie band who never sells out.” Do you have a Lodge cast-iron skillet that’s been passed down in your family? Tell me some of your favorite memories. #OpenSince #LodgeCastIron #CastIron #FamilyBusiness #AmericanHistory by @open.since
The name came off an old bent sign found hiding in a window platform. 👑 In 1913, Harry Karandzieff, a Macedonian immigrant, opened Crown Candy Kitchen a few blocks from what would become Route 66. His cousin “Uncle Pete” built the wooden booths. His son George collected more than 500 antique chocolate molds. His grandson Andy still pours into them. On Christmas Day 1983, the shop caught fire. Five weeks later, it reopened. When people asked why they never moved to the suburbs, George had one answer: “Why should we move? We’re paid for.” Same corner. Same booths. Same molds. Same BLT. 📖 Full story on Substack, link in bio 📍 Crown Candy Kitchen · 1401 St. Louis Ave., St. Louis #OpenSince #Route66 #StLouis #STL #familybusiness by @open.since
13 legacy family businesses. 5 still standing. 7 saying goodbye. And a 103-year-old bartender who still runs his own basement bar. 🕯️ This week’s Still Standing: a 150-year-old Irish pub that ended on the family name, a 119-year-old hat shop that got a street named after its owner, four new members of the century club — and the world’s oldest bartender, still pouring in Pasadena. Read Issue #2 — link in bio. Know a century-old family business? DM @open.since. #StillStanding #OpenSince #FamilyBusiness #CenturyClub LastCall by @open.since
It’s not a typo. It’s 135 years of history. 🍁 The Funk family has made maple sirup at Funks Grove, Illinois, since 1891. That’s in the middle of corn country, on land Isaac Funk settled in 1824, right on old Route 66. Why the “i”? Webster’s dictionary spelled it S-I-R-U-P for over a century, and a Funk named Hazel Funk Holmes wanted it kept. Sign painters still “fix” their signs. The family still sends them back. A few things they’ve outlasted: 1942 — a wartime sugar tax that shut them down for a year c. 1960 — squirrels that chewed through their new tubing 1970s — an interstate drawn through their trees Vermont makes about 1,500 gallons of maple syrup for every one gallon from this grove. It’s still the biggest producer in Illinois. When the sign at the end of the driveway says SIRUP, they’re open. When it sells out, that’s it until next year. Full story on Substack — link in bio. #OpenSince #maplesyrup #maplesirup #route66 #route66centennial illinois familybusiness smallbusiness americana centurybusiness by @open.since
The city of Chicago says Route 66 starts at Navy Pier. Legend says it starts at this counter. 🍳 @loumitchells565 has been serving breakfast on Jackson Boulevard since 1923, three years before Route 66 existed. Every day, someone walks in searching for some nostalgia with a side of eggs before they begin their own Route 66 road trip. What they get: 🍩 a warm donut hole while they wait in line 🥚 omelets whipped in a milkshake machine and finished in the oven 🍦 a scoop of ice cream after breakfast (yes, every table) And a rule Uncle Lou left the family: “Excellence is a constant effort, and quality stands out.” The full story is on Substack. Link in bio. 📌 Save this for your Route 66 trip. 👇 Where does YOUR Route 66 start? #Route66 #Route66Centennial #Chicago #ChicagoEats #ChicagoDiner FamilyBusiness GreekAmerican RoadTrip OpenSince by @open.since
128 years. Four generations. One Chicago institution. You might recognize the Berghoff’s sign. The family story behind it deserves just as much attention. Beer, root beer, Prohibition, and the work of passing a business from one generation to the next—there’s a lot of Chicago history behind those doors. That’s what I explore with Open Since: American businesses run by the same family for over 100 years. Have a Berghoff memory? I’d love to hear it. Or tell me which century-old family business I should cover next. #OpenSince #TheBerghoff #ChicagoHistory #FamilyBusiness #historicrestaurants by @open.since
The Berghoff 📍17 West Adams St. Chicago, Il 🍻 German bar and restaurant 🗓️ Founded: 1898 by Herman Joseph Berghoff ⏳ Fourth Generation A nickel got you a beer and a free sandwich here in 1898. The cost of beer’s gone up. The family hasn’t changed. First stop on a new series I’m running for Route 66’s 100th birthday — one hundred-year-old family business at a time. This one’s not even on Route 66. It’s practically standing at the starting line. Read the history of this legendary Chicago institution👇 by @open.since
This road doesn’t exist anymore. Not on any federal map, anyway. In 1985, the federal government voted to erase Route 66 from the U.S. Highway System. Fifty-nine years earlier, it almost wasn’t even called 66 — a fight with Kentucky’s governor nearly left it as Route 60. This year is @route66official 100th birthday. So starting this week, I’m profiling the family businesses that opened along it and are somehow still open — same family, same business, a century later. A new stop on the Mother Road drops every week. Do you know a 100-year-old family business on Route 66? Tell me in the comments. 👇 #Route66 #MotherRoad #Route66Centennial #FamilyOwned #familybusiness by @open.since
Real cream. Real chocolate. Ingredients a kid can read. That’s how this ice cream shop has run since 1908. Meet @aglamesisbros — a beloved Cincinnati institution that does things the Sincere Way. It’s not a slogan, it’s the actual operating manual. Same recipes. Same small batches. Same pure cane sugar, real vanilla, no preservatives, no shortcuts. The ice cream is still made the slower, more expensive way (more egg yolk, more butterfat, less air pumped in) because that’s the only way the Aglamesis family has ever made it. Their opera cream — a cream, butter, and sugar center dipped in dark chocolate — was voted the best in Cincinnati. They’ve been hand-dipping chocolate the same way since day one, using something like 22,000 pounds of it a year. No franchise. No shortcuts. 118 years, same shop, same pink walls, same “Sincere Way.” This week’s Open Since is Aglamesis Bros. in Oakley — full story on Substack, link in bio. What’s the family business near you that’s still doing it the hard way? Tell me below. 👇 by @open.since
A hint of the next heritage family business we’ll feature tomorrow. Do you know where it is? by @open.since

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