How Oakwood eats: a family grocer, a corner bakery and Saturday mornings on Orchard Drive

Oakwood does not have a restaurant row, and it has never needed one. It is a walkable city of a little over two square miles where, as the city likes to point out, plenty of children still walk home for lunch. Food here is mostly about the kitchen table, and about a handful of places, many of them decades old, that keep it stocked.

Where the habits come from

Oakwood's food history is older than the city. In the 1880s, along what is now Kramer Road, William Kramer kept orchards, vineyards and flower gardens and ran a winery and pleasure gardens; a marker on a boulder near the Dayton Country Club entrance now recalls them. Much of the west side was quarry and the east side farmland until the houses came.

When the Depression stopped Oakwood's building boom, the historical society notes, some residents got by renting out rooms and opening small restaurants and grocery stores. That habit of feeding the neighbors close to home never really left. The city's own description of Oakwood life has neighbors catching up in the grocery aisles, and the shopping district along Far Hills Avenue is still where most errands begin and end.

The grocer at the south end

Dorothy Lane Market began in 1948 as a fruit stand opened by Calvin D. Mayne, and its Oakwood store at 2710 Far Hills Avenue opened in 1953. It is the oldest of the company's stores still operating, and the business remains family-owned, now in its fourth generation. For many Oakwood households it is the weekly shop, but it is also a quick lunch: there is a sandwich station with bread baked daily, a salad bar, sushi made each day and Jack's Grill, where staff will grill any cut you pick from the meat and seafood counter. The store bakes its own Killer Brownie, which it now ships across the country.

The market says it buys from local growers and family orchards, carries grass-fed beef from family farms and stocks local craft beer and in-season flowers. One example it has written about is a family farm in Cedarville, Ohio, that grows pumpkins in varieties chosen with the store. Its cooking school runs at its Washington Square store in Dayton and in Mason rather than in Oakwood, but holiday dinners and party trays can be ordered for pickup at the Oakwood store.

The bakery on Park Avenue

A block off Far Hills, at 21 Park Avenue, Ashley's Pastry Shop has been family-owned since 1982. Its cases hold donuts, breakfast pastries, coffee cakes, breads and dinner rolls, and it makes specialty and custom cakes for birthdays and weddings. Its sand tart cookies have a following of their own, and the shop will ship them by the dozen. There is a gluten-free menu, and orders can be placed online or by phone for pickup. With the City Building at 30 Park Avenue and the Wright Memorial Public Library a short walk up Far Hills, it is an easy stop on a round of errands.

Coffee and a tasting bar

At the north end of town, Tastefully Roasted Coffee opened at 6 Oakwood Avenue in June 2017. It pours classic coffee drinks and rotating specials and serves pastries, breakfast and lunch, with a drive-thru for rushed mornings; its motto is Local Tastes Better. Back on Far Hills, at 2510, The Spicy Olive is a tasting room for olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars: you sample at the bar, and staff bottle and seal what you choose to take home. It is one of three stores run by a small business that began in West Chester in 2012, and it also holds tastings and cooking classes.

A night out on Far Hills

For dinner, The Oakwood Club at 2414 Far Hills has been part of the street since 1962, when Ray and Margie Stewart founded it. The Stewart family ran it for 60 years, and since 2022 it has been owned by The One Esca Group, a Dallas restaurant group. Its menu centers on steaks aged 21 days and cut in house, seafood flown in from both coasts and Florida, and soups, sauces, breads and desserts made from scratch.

Saturday mornings at the market

In 2013 a group of residents started the Oakwood Farmers' Market to bring local farmers, food makers and artisans into the middle of the business district. It sets up on Orchard Drive and the public lot behind the Oakwood Retail Center, just off Far Hills, on Saturday mornings from spring into October. This year's season opened on May 2 and closed on October 10. The market is a nonprofit and posts its vendors and news on its Facebook and Instagram pages, the best place to watch for the 2027 opening date.

Eating like a local

Put together, a very Oakwood food day looks something like this: a coffee from Oakwood Avenue or pastries from Park Avenue on the way to work, a sandwich or a grilled fish fillet from the grocery at lunch, a walk home past the boulevards, and on a summer Saturday, a loop of the market stalls before the shops open. None of it is fancy, and that is the point. Most of these places have been feeding the same streets for years, and they are all within a short walk of one another.