If you’re looking for low-calorie or gluten-free meals, then Harner’s Bakery and Restaurant in North Aurora is probably not for you.
“Nope, other places do that,” said Jodi Binkley, restaurant manager. “We stick to Grandma’s cooking. We don’t really follow the trends.”
The Harner family has been serving old-fashioned, home-cooked meals of naturally aged meats, pork specialties, and items “from the hen house” in the Aurora area since 1960.
The menu hasn’t changed much. “We have added a few items, like ground round steak 10 years ago, and parmesan with chicken or portobello mushrooms and (substituting) fresh fruit for toast or hash browns if people want to eat healthier,” Binkley said.
And for the biscuits and gravy: “Our patty sausage we grind ourselves and make the gravy from the sausage and do all our baking here. Customers would ask us why we used yellow food coloring in our biscuits and we would tell them we use butter, that’s the yellow color they see,” Binkley said. “The good, old-fashioned way with butter, cream and sugar.”
Specialties: According to Binkley: battered chicken, meatloaf, ground round steak, country platter with vegetables, biscuits and gravy, pancakes and corned beef hash. And don’t forget Harner’s Famous Homemade Butter Pecan Coffee Cake: “I can go an hour from here and people talk about it, it’s a real specialty,” she added.
About the owners: Darryl and Joyce Harner grew up in farming families in the area and bought the Aurora bakery where Darryl worked as a doughnut fryer in 1960. The Harners eventually bought the North Aurora location in 1989 for an expanded restaurant and bakery and turned the Aurora location into a coffee and doughnut shop. Six of the seven Harner children run the bakery and restaurant together — Jim, Bob and Paul Harner and Jeanine Bennett, Jodi Binkley and Sue Dondorf. Brother Chris died three years ago but also helped run Harner’s.
A mission statement or philosophy: “Our specialty is to keep things as much as possible as they were in 1960. We keep things the old-fashioned way. Our coffee cakes and doughnuts are made as our parents had done,” Binkley said.
We’re different because: “We’re family owned and old fashioned. We make good food. Nothing is canned here. Food is made just like Grandma used to make it,” Binkley said.
Decor: “Basic decorations, ‘cozy country’ is what we like to call it,” Binkley said.
Prices: Breakfast: Farmer’s breakfasts from $7.95 to $14.95. Omelets from $6.45 to $7.50. Pancakes from $3.10 to $6.95. Sides from $1.50 to $3.95. Lunch/dinner: Appetizers from $2.75 to $8.25. Sides from $2 to $3.75. Soup and salad bar from $4.75 to $7.95. Sandwiches from $6.75 to $9.75. Country platters from $9.75 to $12.45. Dinners from $14.45 to $19.95. Daily specials from $6.50 to $19.95. Pig roast every first Friday from $8.25 to $15.50. Desserts from $1.50 to $4.75.
Logistics: Harner’s Bakery and Restaurant is at 10 W. State St., North Aurora. Hours are 5:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 5:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Harner’s Bakery is at 937 W. Galena Blvd., Aurora. Call 630-892-4400 or go to www.harnersbakery.com.
Shonda Talerico Dudlicek is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.