Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 47F. Winds light and variable..

Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 47F. Winds light and variable.

File photoIt was never any secret that the Secret Sandwich Society was one of the go-to restaurants in Fayette County and the surrounding area, as the restaurant consistently was recognized locally and regionally for its work. Here, Lewis Rhinehart is shown with now-Fayetteville Mayor Sharon Cruikshank (who was then director of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce/New River Gorge CVB), as Secret was revealed as one of the "101 Places to Dine" during West Virginia Restaurant Week in 2015.

Employees of sub-contractor PMC Contracting work on a wall earlier this month.

Steve Keenan/The Register-Herald (6)John Casey, left, owner of Casey Construction, discusses progress on the Secret Sandwich Society rebuild on Sept. 2 with Lewis Rhinehart, the Secret Sandwich Society owner. Rhinehart hopes to have the new building up and running by the end of 2022.

Exterior work occurs onsite this month.

File photoA portion of the exterior of the former restaurant is shown.

Lewis Rhinehart peers into a portion of the building under construction in early September.

The shadows of individuals assessing the SSS construction progress are reflected on a recently poured concrete slab.

A gaping hole in the fabric of Fayetteville will soon be filled with the reopening of the Secret Sandwich Society.

File photoWest Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ben Salango, right, visits with Lewis Rhinehart during a stop at Secret in August 2020.

File photoIt was never any secret that the Secret Sandwich Society was one of the go-to restaurants in Fayette County and the surrounding area, as the restaurant consistently was recognized locally and regionally for its work. Here, Lewis Rhinehart is shown with now-Fayetteville Mayor Sharon Cruikshank (who was then director of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce/New River Gorge CVB), as Secret was revealed as one of the "101 Places to Dine" during West Virginia Restaurant Week in 2015.

Employees of sub-contractor PMC Contracting work on a wall earlier this month.

Steve Keenan/The Register-Herald (6)John Casey, left, owner of Casey Construction, discusses progress on the Secret Sandwich Society rebuild on Sept. 2 with Lewis Rhinehart, the Secret Sandwich Society owner. Rhinehart hopes to have the new building up and running by the end of 2022.

Exterior work occurs onsite this month.

File photoA portion of the exterior of the former restaurant is shown.

Lewis Rhinehart peers into a portion of the building under construction in early September.

The shadows of individuals assessing the SSS construction progress are reflected on a recently poured concrete slab.

A gaping hole in the fabric of Fayetteville will soon be filled with the reopening of the Secret Sandwich Society.

File photoWest Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ben Salango, right, visits with Lewis Rhinehart during a stop at Secret in August 2020.

FAYETTEVILLE — Lewis Rhinehart is just as eager as anybody to see the new Secret Sandwich Society rise from the ashes after a devastating fire gutted the old restaurant in late 2020.

Rhinehart, the Secret Sandwich Society owner, says the plan for a return of a familiar favorite to locals and visitors alike is taking more solid shape with each passing day.

That's great news to many, including Fayetteville Mayor Sharon Cruikshank.

"Fayetteville is so very excited to see the progress on Secret Sandwich Society coming along," Cruikshank said. "The community felt the loss as did Lewis and his team. We are all family here and when one hurts, the other reaches out to help any way we can.

"It will definitely be good to have the family all together again and for me enjoying a rawhide burger and those Brussel sprouts."

David and Tasha Bailey started Secret in 2010. "I bought this location from them in 2012, and then they opened the Richmond location in 2016," said Rhinehart. "Since the fire, I've been going down there and working and helping them out."

Peering into the next few months, Rhinehart says, "I'm very excited. (For one reason) I'm excited to get back to work, because I've been kind of freelancing and doing side things, working at Snowshoe and Richmond. For myself, I'm ready to get back to work. I'm ready to get my staff back to work; they're all very excited."

Heading into a fall construction season that hopefully will allow more significant progress on construction of the new restaurant, which is being built on the site of the former one, Rhinehart says that — like Cruikshank — members of the community and visiting patrons will soon be able to sit down and sample their old Secret favorites. And they'll be able to do so in a "showcase restaurant."

The main contractor, Ravenswood-based Casey Construction, and its subcontractors have been busy for several months on the rebuild.

"We're doing everything we can to be open by the end of the year," Rhinehart, who has owned Secret Sandwich Society since he purchased it from the Baileys in 2012, said during an interview on the job site on Friday, Sept. 2. "Whether or not that happens is yet to be seen."

All the equipment still needed, such as the windows, the steel, the walk-ins and other material, is already available on stand-by in Charleston. "All of that stuff is sitting ready to go," said Rhinehart. "We started ordering the stuff last October and November. We were making sure that we did everything we can to get it where we needed."

John Casey, president of Casey Construction, says that, in early September, crews took 2 1/2 hours to "pour the slab and and the last of the wing wall to support the upper patio that is going to wrap around. It's going to be a four seasons patio. When we're done, we're going to have 310 yards of concrete in just the foundation, footers and slab."

Work was planned in early September on a porch and the lower patio. "Three weeks from today, we're going to start framing," Casey said on Sept. 2.

The construction hasn't come without hitches. Stumbling blocks included the necessity of relocating a four-inch gas line, delays for hitting rock, and "16 days of rain-outs in two months," said Casey.

The project has also included, among other segments, a facet that will help control water coming off the hill, which wound up in the basement of the old building.

"It's a big project," Casey said. "It's larger than the original (building).

"Honestly, this job's a big job," Casey continued. "It's going to be one of the largest restaurants and one of the finest restaurants in the county.

"In six to eight weeks, we'll be dried in. Then comes the roof, windows, doors. Now is when we can shake and bake, we can really get going."

Casey's engineer wife, Jennifer Casey, of J. Casey Consulting, designed the project.

The blaze which destroyed the old restaurant occurred on Nov. 5, 2020, and was determined to be electrical in nature, emanating from the main power box.

"It was an awful day, obviously, and it left a huge hole in the community," Rhinehart said while recalling the fire that destroyed his business. "We were kind of like the community hub, and we had a very tight, close-knit staff.

"Most of my (regular) staff is returning; that's a really good (situation). All of my management team that was with us when the fire happened is returning.

"We're going to hire a few more people, but a lot of the staff is returning."

Although the fire was devastating in so many ways, Rhinehart said the community response in the months since has been heartwarming.

"It's been really humbling over the year and a half, the outreach of people, everyone just reaching out and saying how much they miss it, and everyone's support and everything," he said. "It took a little longer (to get the rebuild process started). I initially had explored some other options."

One of the options, a new Secret Sandwich Society location in Charleston, is "totally on the back burner at this point."

Rhinehart said that, while the new restaurant is expected to be a showcase that offers fresh amenities to customers, it will also include a tribute to the former structure. "The building is going to pay homage to the old building. The new building is going to have the same kind of feel and look somewhat similar to the old building, except it's going to be brand new."

The building which burned was over 100 years old, and the structure itself had proven to be a drawback as the years went on, Rhinehart said.

"Now, we'll have a new building with a huge kitchen," he said. "Our kitchen output is probably more than doubled, and our seating capacity is significantly increased."

A new addition besides the roomier, fresher atmosphere should be a hit, as well. "We're going to have an outdoor beer garden," explained Rhinehart. It will be a "covered, open-air pavilion/patio-type thing," and there will be a "huge wrap-around porch."

According to Rhinehart, parking should be more readily available at the new location. "The old building sat right up against the sidewalk," he explained. The new structure will be "much further back," and the current sidewalk is coming completely up. In that location, diagonal parking spots will be available for head-in parking, in addition to street spots. "We'll have more parking, and it will make the street more accessible," he said.

There will be a 30-foot-long bar. "We will have the ability to have some music in the beer garden and on the porch and even on the inside," said Rhinehart.

The new building will be using a 1,000-gallon grease interceptor, which will collect the grease and get it pumped out monthly so nothing seeps into the wastewater that's grease, Casey said.

Looking back historically, Rhinehart said, "We wanted to pay tribute to the old building."

The majority of the foundation stones from the old restaurant were given to the Town of Fayetteville to assist in ongoing wall repair projects in town.

Stones from a stairwell at the old place are still on hand. "We're going to do something with those stones to kind of bring it back," he said.

Tables formed from a giant tree near the building that had to be taken down in the past, which were present in the former restaurant, are still part of the picture. "We still have those tables; they survived the fire," Rhinehart said. They will likely be utilized "as some type of accent feature, some type of countertop somewhere in the building."

Casey says the Secret rebuild is garnering so much attention that "I've got three job leads off of this." That includes a possible project with a man who "wants to build a building right here in town."

The Secret rebuild is being accomplished via the design-build route. "It's a design-build concept, so we can change some things on the fly," said Casey. "We're not just working for the owner; we're partners with the owner."

Depending on the phase, up to 36 have been employed at one time or the other, including subcontractors, to move the construction along. "We're trying to use local contractors, subcontractors," Casey explained.

For example, PCM Contracting of Sophia is supplying the concrete, Universal Innovations Consulting and Contracting of Beckley is handling the framing and HVAC work, and Central Contracting is involved. Tile, drywall and plumbing work is also being handled locally.

"We're picking up some local labor and paying them as day labor for maybe a week here and there," said Casey. "One of the things that Lewis stressed is that he wanted to use as much local help and subcontractors as possible, and we're reaching that goal," said Casey.

Soon, patrons will be able to again order their favorite presidential-themed sandwich or any number of their other favorites from the Secret menu.

"The bulk of the menu is exactly the same," Rhinehart said. "We have a few tweaks. We've added a couple sandwiches, we've added a few different type of sides. We have a brunch menu."

The former restaurant was still operational when Covid-19 struck in early 2020. Like other businesses, the Secret Sandwich Society had to curtail inside operations and resort to takeout only for a spell.

"We came out of Covid swinging," Rhinehart said. "We did well coming out of Covid. We were on track to have one of the best years we ever had, with being closed for six weeks, so were doing really well with Covid. ... And that really taught us a lot because we learned, like, this is going to be a takeout machine. We really learned how to perfect our takeout game.

"(At the new location) We're also going to have online ordering. Not only will we have dining and table service, but this is also going to be a takeout machine."

Kitchen staff will have better operating conditions, Rhinehart and Casey stress.

Of Rhinehart, Casey said, "He has worked diligently to find a streamlined, short-circuit process for the kitchen. Where it's more streamlined, people aren't crossing each other's paths. The way he's designed it, it's impeccable. I've built a lot of restaurants, and this will be the best restaurant I've ever built."

"That's nice to hear," said Rhinehart, who was born in Maryland, grew up in south-central Pennsylvania and has lived full-time in West Virginia since 2007.

"I can't say enough about John and Jennifer, and my right-hand man is Adam Mathews," Rhinehart said. "Without him and these guys ..."

"We came together as a team," John Casey said.

"I feel good," noted Rhinehart. "You hear all the horror stories right now in the restaurant industry, with staffing and with the cost of goods right now. The cost of goods are through the roof.

"And you hear all this talk about recession. I think here, especially right now around the national park, we're a little bit recession-proof. I feel like there's nowhere to go but up around here, and I feel like there's a lot of money coming into the area. I think we're hitting it right at the right time.

"To be honest, maybe having that little pause coming through Covid, all the secondary Covid and everything, I think may be a blessing in disguise."

He says he's eager to get back into the groove and help his fellow local restaurant owners provide dining options to the "out of control" numbers of visitors being attracted to the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, which was designated in December 2020.

"I'm super excited to be here for the town because it's just a big hole. It's even hard for me to go into the other restaurants and they're like, 'Please, just get open because we're getting killed.'

"We're ready to take some of the heat off. The pendulum swings, and we're ready for it to swing our way."

Email: skeenan@register-herald.com or follow on Twitter @gb_scribe

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