May 2026 – Whoopsie Piggle

There’s a saying in the restaurant business that the food brings people in the first time, but it’s the service that brings them back and makes them regulars.

The summer of 2000, my then-husband’s employer hired a man whose wife I’d worked with in Columbus years earlier. We lived in Cleveland at the time and drove to the Montrose Macaroni Grill at the couple’s invitation. I held my third child, who was new to the world, throughout the meal while verbally managing my 6- and 3-year-old sons.

The penne rustica, a pasta with chicken, shrimp and prosciutto in a creamy rosemary sauce, impressed my husband. But a dish on the kid’s menu captured my heart ‒ grilled chicken breast with a side of spaghetti with marinara and steamed broccoli, milk and a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting under warm ganache chocolate sauce, made in house. All for $5.

For years thereafter, on our birthdays we went to Macaroni Grill, where feeding three boys only added $15 to the tab. It felt luxurious. The servers wore crisp, white chef’s aprons, white dress shirts and ties. A song sung in Italian by local voice students entertained not only birthday guests but the entire restaurant. Each table was set with a fresh sheet of butcher paper upon which my children drew countless masterpieces with the crayons the restaurant provided.

Eventually Erin, a bartender, Kristin, a server who later became a bartender, and Jake, a teen-aged busser, all knew us by name. Erin’s father who, like me, was adjunct faculty at the University of Akron, became a friend. We would grab coffee together on campus at least once a semester. Last fall, I went to his memorial at Erin’s house.

Macaroni Grill bartender Erin Bidwell-Giannone with Holly Christensen's children Lyra and Leif at Macaroni Grill in Montrose for Lyra's third birthday. — Macaroni Grill bartender Erin Bidwell-Giannone with Lyra and Leif at Lyra’s fifth birthday in 2017.

Our family tradition of birthdays at Macaroni Grill lasted longer than my marriage to the father of my first three children. In 2010, the boys, their stepfather, Max, and my 10-month old baby, arrived to celebrate my birthday only to find the restaurant closed due to a fire two weeks earlier. For months, nothing seemed to happen and we wondered if the restaurant, along with our birthday tradition, was “finito.”

Exactly a year after the fire, however, Macaroni Grill reopened. Renovations and menu changes made it better than ever while a surprising number of employees returned, joined by a few new faces. Jess, a server who always wears a bow in her hair and a smile on her face, has a wicked sense of humor. And Lettie, a manager I’ve watched do almost every job in the restaurant, moved to Akron for love and stayed, living with and caring for her partner’s family, now years after cancer took her partner. Another manager, Tommy, made pizzas the way he likes them ‒ “with lotsa cheese.”

The next few years were the heyday of the Montrose Mac Grill. The new bar had three banquette booths that could seat up to five and a patio. In the bar, happy hour included $5 pizzas baked in a wood-fired brick oven and $5 glasses of house wine. On Mondays, a different entrée was offered at BOGO pricing.

Max, the children and I became Monday regulars. By the time our daughter, Lyra, was 2, she demanded we go there whenever she saw the building or heard its name. As a result, we began referring to it as the “second kitchen.” By then, Jake had grown into a 30-something bartender whom Lyra was especially sweet on.

We also came to know the other regulars. Another Monday-night couple had an astronomer son who came to town and talked at length about space with my then-9-year-old son. A surgeon often arrived in his scrubs after work. Dennis, a man with whom I’ve chatted for decades, has watched my children grow up from his seat at the Mac Grill bar.

COVID stopped it all. At the time, my eldest son was an Americorps VISTA who worked evenings at Mac Grill as a food runner and, when things reopened, a host. But, as with so many restaurants, Macaroni Grill never fully recovered. The chain has changed hands several times in recent years, but none of the various owners have reinvigorated the once-booming restaurant. The menu remained COVID slim for too long, while the facility looked the worse for wear. Several long-time employees, including Erin and Jake, moved on to other jobs.

The week before Easter, I had dinner at Macaroni Grill for the first time in a long while. Kristin took great care of us and Lettie gave me the most wonderful hug. A few days later, when employees arrived at work, they were told it was the restaurant’s last day.

This is not the first restaurant I’ve been sad to see close. It’s a tough business and, especially since COVID, it’s happened often. But Macaroni Grill, a national chain with a very local crew, was much more than a restaurant. To all the people, employees and guests who celebrated at Mac Grill with my family for 26 years, I raise my glass. Saluti!

This was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, May 10, 2026.

The need to garden is surely encoded in my DNA; my family tree is filled with long lines of farmers. No merchants, tradespeople, masons: just generation after generation of ancestors who, until quite recently, worked the land.

My mother’s uncles both farmed in LaPorte, Indiana, where they were raised with my grandma and another sister on their parents’ farm. Mormon pioneers on my dad’s side settled Utah in the 1800s and most stayed on family farms until the Great Depression when many left to find work in faraway cities ‒ like my grandparents, who met in Chicago.

When someone tells me gardening is not their cup of tea, which is not infrequently, I’m perpetually surprised. The feeling of sore muscles after a day of lifting bags of mulch and rock-filled wheelbarrows, digging deep holes, squatting to plant and weed is vastly more satisfying to me than working out at a gym. Both leave the body aching, but only gardening has the payoff of filling spaces with beauty.

After this year’s long, hardy winter, April’s mostly warm, wet weather has been exceptionally conducive for prepping gardens. I have found it difficult to do much else, and happily so.

When schools closed for Good Friday, several of my 16-year-old’s friends unexpectedly arrived at my house. The timing was perfect. An 8-by-4-foot raised planting bed one of my older sons had built in 2020, and where I’ve grown kitchen herbs since, was falling apart. I moved perennial herbs into buckets and told the teens to transfer the dirt to the newly assembled galvanized metal bed along the south side of my house, where the summer sun shines all day.

And you know what? Those strong-backed kids grabbed shovels and the wheelbarrow and got to it. Sure, they laughed and horsed around, and yet, while perhaps not efficient, they were thorough. When the new bed was filled, the teens joyfully destroyed the old one while I clandestinely darted to the nearest ATM. They had worked at my request, with no promise of payment, and were delighted when I handed each a $20 bill.

Holly Christensen's German shepherd, Otto, checks out the new galvanized raised planting bed for her kitchen herbs. — Otto, our German shepherd, appears to inspect the new raised planting bed.

This year’s biggest project, however, is the front yard. I fenced in my property last spring and, to save money, did not connect the back and front yards with a gate. Without access from the backyard, the lawn mower must now be carried up several stairs to the elevated front plot. This is fine for my 16-year-old, but in two short years he will leave for college.

That’s the practical excuse for what I did.

The truth is, I was eager to convert the front plot into one big garden. Last summer, I removed the grass around the perimeter and planted nasturtium, blanket flower (Gaillardia) and zinnias next to the chain-link fence that runs along the property line from backyard’s privacy fence to the top of the retaining wall that abuts the sidewalk. At the middle of the fence, I planted a yellow trumpet flower that quickly extended its vines the entire length of chain link.

Much of Holly Christensen's front yard in Akron is covered in landscape fabric while awaiting transformation into a garden. — Henry, the family’s Yorkipoo, is the best gardening assistant.

To create a pleasingly balanced space, I don’t expect to complete my new garden this summer. “Have a plan, but follow it loosely” is my mantra for many things, including travel, as it welcomes serendipity. And so it is with my new garden.

This month, I removed all the remaining grass, which, along with flowers, will be replaced with paths, maybe a statue and a shepherd’s hook with a bird feeder. But what goes where will unfold as things present themselves. I recently bought six columbine plants for $12 from the clearance racks at Lowe’s and put three in the front garden.

Recently, a friend posted photos of bluebell fields abloom in the Metroparks.

“Ah, yes! Bluebells!” I thought, and bought a packet of seeds, which I stirred into a half cup of sand before spreading the mixture in the corner where the privacy fence meets the house. If all goes well, next year bluebells will grow like a rivulet streaming from that corner toward the columbine.

I also reclaimed my front porch last weekend with a proper cleaning. I blew away leaves, vacuumed the rugs, hung them on the fence and “power washed” them with the jet function on my hose nozzle. While they dried, I took a bucket of water and Murphy’s Oil Soap and scrubbed it all ‒ the porch’s floors, ledges, window sills and even the walls.

From where they wintered in the garage, this weekend I will return the summer furniture to the front porch and the outdoor dining table, chairs and umbrella to the back patio. And for many months to come, I will regularly dine with family and friends at both locations, enjoying the sights, smells and sounds of my outdoor spaces. I can’t imagine heaven is any sweeter.

This column was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, April 26, 2026.