Restaurants in Centerville

Since 1898, Krema Nut Company's presses and roasters have churned out a salty and sweet selection of preservative-free nuts, nut butters, and snacks, which have garnered attention from the Food Network's Unwrapped and Food Finds. The shop’s shelves support more traditional snacks, including bags of caramel corn, dried fruits, and roasted pecan halves, and more experimental morsels, such as wasabi roasted green peas and cashews tumbled in sea salt and black pepper. Alongside classic candies and its line of gourmet chocolates, the staff whips up a menu of sandwiches slathered in homemade nut butters and decadent peanut-butter ice-cream sundaes topped with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, freshly sliced fruit, and liquid happiness.

Mary Kathleen Kelley-Hammond never thought she’d run her own restaurant. Not that it wasn’t in her blood. In 1945, her grandparents assumed ownership of an old pub and renamed it Kelley’s Tavern, both to stake their claim and, presumably, to remember their own name in case another plague of amnesia swept through the United States of Something. Though the tavern stayed in the family for some time, it eventually closed its doors, becoming—ironically enough—an office for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Meanwhile, Mary Kathleen’s years passed by untouched by beer taps or commercial kitchens, at least until she married Dick Hammond, a chef and restaurateur trained at the famous Le Cordon Bleu in France. After successfully running an eatery under Hammond’s name, the couple founded Mary Kelley’s Restaurant & Pub—named for Mary Kathleen’s entrepreneurial grandma—in 1998, finally acquiescing to fate. The rest of the family soon gave in too. Today, Mary Kelley’s son greets restaurant guests, and her own granddaughters work on the wait staff, prepping hand-pattied turkey burgers and freshly broiled seafood from recipes that are, after all, encoded in their DNA.

The chefs at Senor Tequilas pay homage to traditional Mexican fare, crafting satisfying dishes such as mole-topped chicken enchiladas and crispy chimichangas. House specialties include the carnitas michoacan, morsels of slow-cooked pork served with flour tortillas, rice, refried beans, and pico de gallo. Staffers deliver lunch plates filled with the likes of pollo a la chipotle, which features grilled chicken simmered in a piquant chipotle sauce. The menu also offers more than 20 combination platters for diners who prefer to sample several items or test whether or not a taco will fit inside a chile relleno.

Diners can relax in cushioned booths with wood detailing and watch one of several televisions as servers pour cold draft beer and margaritas at the wooden bar.

The cobbled stonework that comprises Coaches Bar & Grill's exterior serves as an apt metaphor for how hard it can be to turn down items from the roster of burgers, pizza, and sandwiches. This cuisine basks in the glow of flat-screen TVs that stream a steady flow of sports games. As monitors display feats of athleticism, the kitchen staff displays feats of culinary prowess by cooking half-pound patties bedecked with cheese and bacon, along with a mélange of hot subs, sandwiches, and buffalo-chicken pizzas. From behind a dark wooden bar, their bartending counterparts pour beers and cocktails, which they disseminate to far-flung diners by shooting them out of a T-shirt cannon. The team also brings its serving game to the outdoors patio, where umbrellas shade picnic tables granting clear sightlines to several televisions.

Bold, earthy paintings line the canary-yellow walls of Lemongrass, but they have to contend with the vibrant spreads of sushi and pad thai that top the plates at the pan-Asian bistro. Sushi, sashimi, and nigiri options run the gamut from barbecue eel and asparagus to a specialty Manhattan roll glazed with shrimp caviar. A lighter lunch menu presents smaller portions of the dinner entrees, along with handheld options such as chicken bacon and shrimp-tempura wraps. An extensive wine menu complements the dinner and lunch menus, and the tempting dessert menu catalogs fried plantains and mango sorbet served in a mango rind.

Though the hot dog may often be thought of as a simple summertime staple, the cooks at Hot Dawgs! have worked to elevate them to gourmet status. Nathan’s all-beef hot dogs, brats, Italian sausages, and veggie dogs all sizzle on grills, awaiting toppings that range from traditional sport peppers and sauerkraut to such inventive condiments as sriracha and coleslaw. Its seasonal housemade soups and tater tots pair with the handheld meals, and slices of homemade pie serve as a happy conclusion, much like a third-grader’s edits to Romeo and Juliette.