LIMA — A new restaurant specializing in wood-fired pizzas and hand-dipped ice cream has opened in a historic building in downtown Lima.
The Hollander, located at 134 N. Main St., opened for breakfast shortly after Christmas. The restaurant is now open from 6 to 11 a.m., but owner Jeff Blanford plans to offer lunch and dinner hours. Starting Monday, The Hollander will be open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., with dinner hours beginning Jan. 23.
Blanford described The Hollander as a “family-friendly restaurant” that he hopes will bring more people to downtown Lima.
“Older people always talk about coming to downtown Lima, but by the time my generation came along, downtown was pretty well dying,” Blanford said. “We hope to re-establish that behavior pattern of kids and families going downtown.”
Housed in a historic building that was constructed in the mid-1800s, The Hollander’s interior is split into two halves. A partition separates the ice cream parlor, which will open in spring, with the restaurant portion. A patio area in the back of the restaurant seats around 75 people, with another 75 to 80 seats inside.
The menu features more than 10 artisan-style, wood-fired pizzas. Hollander’s house pizza is comprised of a sun-dried tomato pesto base with grilled chicken, mushrooms, spinach and fresh mozzarella cheese. Another specialty, the BLT pizza, is topped with bruschetta ham, split cherry tomatoes and leaves of spinach.
“It’s our twist on a BLT sandwich,” said Todd States, director of food services at The Hollander.
Other pizzas include the margherita, chicken and broccoli, Hawaiian, roasted red potato and buffalo chicken.
“We hand-press all our dough, and we put it through the oven for a minute and a half just to get a nice rise on the crust,” States said. “It’s not too doughy, it’s not too tough. It’s just perfect.”
Pizza and ice cream aren’t the only items on the menu. For breakfast, the restaurant serves an eggs benedict, smokehouse omelet, huevos rancheros and a cinnamon swirl french toast, among others. The dinner menu will feature two or three cuts of steak, pan-seared salmon and more. For lunch, customers may enjoy the artisan pizzas, salads and other items.
In all, The Hollander will serve around 80 items when it opens for lunch and dinner.
“Every couple weeks we’re going to bring a lit bit more onto the menu,” States said. “We want to make sure everything we put on the table is 100 percent perfect, so we’re easing into this.”
For Blanford, the variety of menu items, the atmosphere and the outdoor patio area gives The Hollander a “big city feel” that he said Lima is lacking.
“It’s like rediscovering Lima,” he said. “Our food quality and the outdoor dining area in the back — it doesn’t feel like you’re in Lima.”
The Hollander isn’t the only restaurant Blanford plans to open in downtown Lima. He purchased almost an entire block of buildings, and plans to open a fine-dining restaurant and a banquet hall after The Hollander is fully operational.
“You have The Met, you have Old City Prime and then you have this gap in the middle,” he said. “So if we can occupy this block, clean it up and make it look good, when you drive through downtown you won’t feel the same way you do now with all the abandoned buildings.”
Blanford said he is also filling a need for family-friendly restaurants in the downtown area.
“My hope is, if this goes well, you’ll get families to come down here and then the activity downtown will be great,” he said. “I think it’s important we get families to come down here and enjoy the downtown again.”
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