By NANCY WILSTACH / Special to the reporter

COLUMBIANA – Hartley’s Down-Home Kitchen made a great impression on Columbiana in its first two days of operation.

“So far they have been open two days, and I have been there both of them,” said Mayor Stancil Handley Thursday afternoon. “It was great, great, and Caldwell and Amy (Hartley) are just quality people.”

Handley said that he ate steak and gravy on opening day and followed up Thursday with beef tips and rice. “I can hardly wait until Friday—that’s catfish day.”

Amy Hartley said the restaurant’s reception in the county seat has been everything that she hoped for.  She and her husband own another Hartley’s in Chelsea and have operated that business for 10 years.

“We prayed a lot about this for two years,” Amy said.  “My husband wanted a second location for some time, and then this opportunity came up.”

The opportunity was the sudden closure of Bernie’s on Main Street.  The location is ideal for a lunch spot, less than two blocks from the Courthouse and with plenty of parking. In fact, all of the roomy location is not entirely into use yet.

That may change soon.

As Amy took an early afternoon break to describe the excitement of the first two days, Trey Woodrow stopped to talk business. Woodrow, a lawyer whose practice, Morrison & Spann, is just a block from Hartley’s, was there to make sure the Shelby County Bar Association would be able to continue to hold its luncheon meetings in the thus-far unused space on the north side of the restaurant. The bar association had been meeting on the first Wednesday of each month at Bernie’s, he said.

As the lunch crowd began thinning out, a few items were crossed off the day’s chalkboard menu.  Hartley’s had run out of poppyseed chicken, cole slaw and broccoli casserole.

“We were really slammed,” Amy said, “and we had a few hiccups opening day.”  One of those involved winding up with only one kitchen employee three days before the opening. “My husband really knows how to run a kitchen, and we have it smoothed out now.  We have wonderful, happy, sweet, smiling people, and all of them have restaurant experience.”

As she spoke, daughter Hannah, 18, a nursing student, walked in to help with the post-lunch cleanup. Hannah’s elder brother, Caldwell V (“Little Caldwell”), 20, also works in the family businesses when he isn’t in class.

The youngest Hartley, 7-year-old Brady, pitches in, too, Amy said.  He likes bussing tables at the Chelsea location, she said.  “People compliment him on his work ethic, and they give him tips,” she said.  “He wound up with $15 in his pocket the other day.”

“We are all about family,” she said.

Like Mayor Handley, Bruce Andrews, executive director of the Shelby County Arts Council, walked to the new eatery for lunch on its first two days of operation.

“Collards, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and the jalapeño cornbread,” said Andrews, when asked to describe his Thursday repast. On opening day he opted for the vegetable plate with black-eyed peas and collard greens. He pronounced it all “really, really good.”

Scott Owen of Owen Arts joined Andrews for lunch Thursday and had a vegetable plate featuring the collard greens. “That’s one of the tests for a meat-and-three place,” he said, “how they cook collard greens. These were great.”

Handley acknowledged having a role in bringing Hartley’s to Columbiana. “I went to the Chelsea location with Gregg Rushton a couple of times to kind of recruit them to Columbiana,” the mayor said.

Hartley’s is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday through Friday. Even a hearty appetite can be sated for less than $10.