Monique CalelloStaunton News Leader
STAUNTON — When Terry Holmes has an appointment for physical therapy, most of the people in the waiting room are people he knows from his life at Mill Street Grill. He likes to walk up to them like he used to when waiting tables and ask how they’re doing. Everybody laughs, he says. And that’s Holmes. He’s warm, kind and really funny, which includes self-deprecating humor about his adventures (and misadventures) in life.
It was a couple months ago when Holmes retired from Mill Street Grill, his second home for most of his life. No one really knew about it and that’s the way he wanted it. Holmes traveled to Ireland with his husband for a month and when they got back, he posted a picture on Facebook and wrote, "Last night at the mill," and that was it.
"I didn't really tell anybody," says Holmes. "I just kind of kind of bowed out because I didn't want there to be a big brouhaha about me leaving."
Now that Holmes is back home, he’s starting to pay attention to things he never had time for because he was working so much. Like most people who have spent their lives working in the restaurant industry, his body is pretty beat up. But he’s lucky, he says, that it's nothing serious. Standing on your feet working 14-hour shifts night after night for nearly 40 years catches up with you when you get older and it gets to the point where you physically can't do the work you love anymore.
When you look back at his life, it has been a life of service to others and most likely once he’s had a chance to relax, he will find a way to keep giving back.You can always tell when someone genuinely likes people, and Holmes is one of those people. While he loves to talk, he also loves to listen and he cares about the people who have given him such a good life and that's not something you can just turn off. Most likely, he says, he'll volunteer in some capacity to continue serving the community.
"I can't complain," he says. "My life has been really good to me. Staunton and the people have been very accepting."
He couldn't swim and had never stepped foot on a boat ... so he joined the Navy
It was 1974 at the end of Vietnam War when Holmes joined the Navy. He couldn’t swim and had never stepped foot on a boat. In boot camp, you have to be able to float in water and Holmes sunk like a rock every time.
"They just basically try to drown you until you can float. I was what you call a rock. When you jump in you sink to the bottom.”
But he made it through and went on to work as a medic in geriatrics treating admirals and colonels and those who spent a lifetime serving in the military and then in the ICU nursery for military families.
"It was very interesting and sad sometimes," he says about working in the ICU nursery and remembering some of the severe complications where babies couldn't be saved.
While he never saw combat or actually step foot on a Navy boat, Holmes did learn how to be a field medic to treat the wounded should he be stationed near conflict. But people were burnt out on war after Vietnam, he says, so instead he continued working as a medic until he left the Navy and was able to attend college for free.
"I majored in history," he says. “My degree and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.”
When Holmes got out of the Navy, he worked in a record store for about three years and jokes that he had to get a second job to pay for his record addiction. But what he always knew most was working in restaurants which he started doing when he was about 14 years old. Originally from North Carolina, he moved to the area after his uncle died.
"My aunt and uncle lived up in McGaheysville, and I spent every summer with them as a kid until I turned 15. When my uncle got real sick and he died of cancer, I came here with not the intention of staying, but just to help my aunt, my cousin get everything in order. So I kind of helped out there for a while and I got a job while I was here in Harrisonburg."
Opening Mill Street Grill, the blizzard of '93 and baby back ribs
Holmes says Pargos restaurant in Harrisonburg was his first "real restaurant" job. He applied there and got a job as a manager, he says. That's also the place where he met Ron Bishop, co-owner and now majority owner of the Mill Street Grill. The two became lifelong friends and would work together for decades. What brought Holmes to Staunton was a friend who told him about the White Star Mills closing.
"The White Star Mills had gone out of business. People hadn't paid their taxes and the government closed them down. He said, why don't you look at this? When I walked in, I loved it. I signed the lease that night and everything was history after that."
But it was a bumpy start. When they opened in 1992, the economy was struggling and the first six months were pretty rough, he says. Then Staunton had the big blizzard of '93 and for weeks they had to close Thursdays through Sundays.
"After that we got busy enough where we could hire more people. I worked in the kitchen with Ron. He's always worked the kitchen. He still works the kitchen even though he's the majority owner. He just likes that part of it."
The thing that differentiated Mill Street from the other restaurants was their ribs, he says. "We ran on that." Just about every place Holmes had ever worked had ribs, so he was real familiar with doing barbecue ribs.
"We started out just doing baby back ribs and we did beef ribs because there were a lot of Seventh Day Adventists in this area and they don't eat pork. And we've had beef ribs on the menu almost the whole time we've been open. Sometimes we don't have them because they just get so expensive that you can't make any money on them. We did so well with the baby back ribs that we brought in the St. Louis ribs which is also a pork rib, but it's a meatier rib. We sell a couple thousand pounds of ribs a week. And that's not even trying anymore. We don't even advertise them anymore on our billboard because everything else is so good."
Serving on Staunton City Council for nine years
About 10 years ago, Holmes was recruited by a friend and former Staunton City Council member, the late Bruce Elder, when Elder decided to run for Congress. "I just kind of basically stepped into his position," says Holmes. "I thought, I'll give it a run. I guess I am political, but I always try to be pretty even minded and I wasn't going to run for more than one term, but I liked it a lot."
Holmes ended up serving on city council for nine years. He had intended to leave after eight, but when the mayor resigned, he stayed on another year because he knew how hard it was to bring someone new up to speed during budget season.
"When I ran for city council, the main reason I was running was because I wanted a new high school. You can't recruit good businesses if you don't have a good school system. Staunton has a very good school system, they just didn't have good schools. Some of them were in pretty bad shape. Itcosts a lot of money, especially when something gets old. I can attest to that to Mill Street, just the upkeep on that place sometimes would break you."
Overall, he says he loved city council and all the people he worked with on council.
"Most of the time you do it for the love of the community," says Holmes. "I don't think I would ever do anything above that. I can't imagine. City council was political enough. I worried when I first got elected, it might hurt my business but it never did."
Mill Street Grill wins Best of Virginia 2024 for fine dining and steakhouse
The menu at Mill Street Grill is so popular that it won first place in Virginia Living's Best of Virginia 2024 for fine dining in Staunton. They also nabbed second place for steakhouse. According to TripAdvisor, Mill Street Grill sits at #2 out of 84 restaurants in Staunton for Traveler's Choice 2023. So when Holmes takes pride in the food they serve, so do thousands of people who come from miles away or those customers who come every week because they love the food at the Mill.
"Some people come a couple of times a week," he says. "That makes you feel good because you know you're doing something right and then you develop friendships with all the customers that come in there and then they're no longer your customers, they're your friends. That's been the best part about it."
Another thing that was important was putting in the extra effort into service and giving customers personal touches like the three different breads and a crock with flavored butter that changed every day, says Holmes. Or, a little dab of peppermint ice cream after your meal.
That service also meant making the Mill Street Grill a place where staff would want to work, too. Developing relationships and friendships with each other and their customers created an environment of family and community. That's one of the things that's so special to Holmes.
"I've had so many good people work for me over the years," he says. "I mean, people, you know, that you get attached to like family. We were all like family and that's the nice thing about restaurants in general."
He really misses it, Holmes says, while sitting in a booth before the restaurant crowd comes in for dinner. But he's in his late sixties, his body has had enough, and there's no such thing as part-time at the Mill. He tried that. He just ended up working too much.
"I already miss it. I miss seeing all my regular customers. I miss the camaraderie of the people I worked with, but I don't miss the long hours. When I got out, I went to Ireland for a month. That was my Christmas present."
So what's next for Holmes? Right now, it's the small things in life, family and travel. An avid reader, he's got piles of books he's been meaning to read. He always worked nights so something like watching a TV show or going to a concert is a treat. He's working on writing a cookbook, and he and his husband finally get to travel and spend more time together.
"Not only did I make a living, I got to do something I love to do and meet people all the time. I'm just lucky I fell into the restaurant business. It's not for everybody, but I'll tell you one thing, it's been a great ride."
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