Hanover’s home base for delicious food, brews and a brand-new business next door, The Brew Deck @ The Warehouse
By Karen Hendricks | Photography by Casey Martin
October 4 is a milestone in Melinda and Keith Stambaugh’s lives. It’s not only Melinda’s birthday, but the birthday of their popular Hanover business, Warehouse Gourmet Bistro & Brewpub.
“Every time I turn a year older, the restaurant turns a year older,” says Melinda with a smile.
That means Warehouse Gourmet turns 19 this fall.
“Nearly 20 years for a restaurant in a small town the size of Hanover—I’m happy,” she says.
And this year marks yet another milestone, as the couple prepares to debut a brand-new business expansion next-door, adding onto Warehouse Gourmet’s success: The Brew Deck @ The Warehouse. It’s the latest evolution of the business, which has grown exponentially throughout its 19 years.
Warehouse Backstory
Keith purchased the warehouse in 1996 as a place to live and locate his growing painting and screen-printing business, The Screaming Peacock. A graduate of the York Academy of Arts, Keith created sets, backgrounds and custom T-shirts at the time.
In the meantime, Melinda graduated from Cornell University’s hotel school, learning how to cook and operate a restaurant. She’d gotten her start in the business as a teen, working at the former Patty and John’s Restaurant. Following college, she stayed in New York for a few years, working in restaurants and gaining experience.
“I moved back to Hanover at the age of 27 because I bought a house to flip. I thought I’d be here for half a year. But I met him,” says Melinda, nodding at Keith, “and never left. We got married and turned the warehouse into a restaurant, which was my dream.”
Warehouse Gourmet initially launched as a catering business, and Melinda’s homemade cooking brought new flavors and cuisine to Hanover.
“Back in 2004, the food scene in this area was not diverse,” says Keith. “She would make wraps with yellow curried chicken, grapes and scallions.”
“She made food that Hanover had never seen before,” says Melinda’s father, Lamar Bortner. He came on board to help with marketing and deliveries.
“I took menus to the general hospital and went floor-to-floor and desk-to-desk until security kicked me out,” he says, laughing. “But we still get orders from the hospital two to three times a week,” nearly 20 years later.
Warehouse Uptrend
The couple started small and grew Warehouse Gourmet incrementally over the years. When catering customers requested a dining area, the couple created the downstairs bistro area, including an iconic booth inside what used to be Keith’s closet. He hand built many of the tables, utilizing wood from an old back staircase they removed.
In the early 2000s, when breweries began popping up throughout Central Pennsylvania, Keith took note and began brewing beer.
“Being the first brewery in Hanover, we had to go before the borough. They voted 2-to-1, in favor,” Keith recalls. As the business expanded to include dining and brewing, its name likewise expanded into Warehouse Gourmet Bistro & Brewpub.
All the while, the couple lived—and still do—at the warehouse.
“It’s really nice living where you work, because the restaurant business is so demanding,” Keith says, to which Melinda adds, “We worked 24/7 in the beginning, the first five years.”
The kitchen began in one back room. Melinda established a gold standard of cooking and baking every single item from scratch.
“I always believed that if you make good food, people will come,” she says.
As a result, every dish sampled tasted like a zesty, well-seasoned, tried-and-true recipe. Cream of Crab Soup, one of Melinda’s 30 soup recipes, is one of the most popular menu items. Red Curry Coconut Chicken, served with jasmine rice, is incredibly flavorful. The classic French dessert Pot de Crème, as the menu states, is indeed “a perfect-sized chocolate mousse with Chantilly cream and a chocolate cookie.”
Warehouse Gourmet’s Sourdough Ciabatta Bread is not only a menu staple—the crusty foundation of menu sandwiches—but it’s sold in bakery-style loaves as well. All told, the restaurant bakes 50 to 60 loaves weekly. You could say that each one is a work of art, since resident artist Keith is also a self-taught baker. Today’s sourdough loaves hail from the same starter and culture Keith began and launched nearly 20 years ago—a prized tradition among bakeries and restaurants. That means, through the years, Keith has actually taken the starter along on the couple’s vacations to nurture and keep it going. During the pandemic, Keith is proud of the fact that he baked and donated 500 loaves to people in need through New Hope Ministries.
But the restaurant’s expansion, over time, meant that Keith’s art studio, conversely, shrank and got pushed up to the attic.
“My paintings got smaller and smaller, from big acrylic paintings on canvas to smaller pastels on paper,” Keith says. “I’ve basically been biding my time to build a new studio next door, so I can get back to larger paintings.”
“The goal,” Melinda adds, “has always been to get the restaurant going, so that he can paint more.”
And that time is finally here. The couple bought the adjacent property six months before the pandemic, and after many construction delays, it’s set to open as The Brew Deck @ The Warehouse this fall. Not only will it serve as Keith’s new studio, but the new facility will house a gathering space and all brewery operations—tripling in size. The open-air concept Brew Deck features doors that flip open when the temperatures allow.
A completely new menu will be available at The Brew Deck, including wings with bleu cheese dressing, and Disco Fries with a twist—béchamel sauce.
“People have been begging for French fries, but because we live here, we didn’t want to smell like a French fry,” says Melinda.
Warehouse Personnel
The Stambaughs current employ about 20 staff members—a mix of family members and longtime employees.
Chef Joe Adams began in 2011 as Warehouse Gourmet’s baker. He’s been head chef for seven years, developing and adding his recipes among Melinda’s to the menu. Crab Mac & Cheese is one of his creations.
“It’s been wonderful to work here—they’re not just my bosses, they’re my friends,” he says.
Eric Heinrich, Warehouse Gourmet’s brewer of seven years, is especially proud of his holiday beer, the Ginger Doodle.
“It tastes like a gingersnap cookie, with ginger, cinnamon and clove,” he describes. “I like the creativity and science of brewing. There are a lot of variables that make brewing a hard thing to figure out—it never ends.”
A special new fall beer is on the menu: Beer for Johnny is a Belgian triple IPA in memory of a former coworker.
In addition to local wines, Melinda recently added Italian wines to the menu, after discovering a Pennsylvania wine distributor offering them. And, like fine wine, the atmosphere at Warehouse Gourmet is mellow, thanks to the tone set by the Stambaughs.
“We are together pretty much all the time—it’s been like that since the beginning,” says Melinda.
“Our chemistry is great. I truly respect her savvy, her restaurant acumen,” Keith adds. The couple finishes each other’s sentences, telling their story, together.
“The only time we ever fought was when we tried to do Saturday brunch, so we just stopped doing it,” Melinda remembers.
Overall, the couple is grateful to the greater Hanover community.
“Cooking’s always been my passion, my hobby—I never think of this as my job,” says Melinda.
“I’m excited that we were welcomed, our food was welcomed,” Keith says, “and the fact that, after all these years, people still love our food.”
Warehouse Gourmet Bistro & Brew Pub
7 Pennsylvania Ave., Hanover
717-451-9898
