FRANKLIN, Ky. — In the town of Franklin, a former hardware store with a safe and freight elevator complete with an old carriage still intact reminds diners of the farm roots of the building that makes up the Brickyard Café.

“David Hatter, a landowner and farmer, built this building as he was starting to farm,” explained Robert Stupar, co-owner of the café. “The freight elevator runs to the third floor and still works.”

The elevator, although now just a talking point for diners, once carried buggies and other items. When Stupar and his partner found the building, it was PJ’s General Store. The building was constructed in the early 1900s and served as both the Franklin Carriage Co. and the Hatter Hardware Co.

“A gentleman, Mr. Young, claims that he is Mr. Hatter’s grandson and that Mr. Hatter would bring carriage parts up to the third floor (to put them together), then he would bring them down for the farmers to see,” Stupar said.

The building was also once a farm store run by a family named Hodges, and it even served at one time as a pawn shop. “The post holding a carriage on display has bullet holes in it from the time this was a pawn shop,” Stupar said. “The guy tested guns.”

The locals are taking the history and the café to heart: “The local historical society found a bench made here that says ‘Hatter’s Hardware’ and they brought it here.”

On their website, the owners share discoveries they made while renovating the building. During remodeling, the new owners uncovered original wooden floors, discovered thick walls constructed with Simpson County’s Ford Brothers’ bricks and revealed the original limestone footings that came from the same quarry as the stone used to build the former jail.

It is said a piece of gold is under the floorboards of the Franklin Brickyard Café. Years ago it fell to the floor and rolled into a crack between the floorboards, never to be seen again, according to veteran players of “the never-ending and hotly-contested” Rook competition that used to take place in the back of the old hardware store.

Stupar came to the United States from war-torn Croatia and worked with his Bosnian partner, Zeljko “Jake” Simic, to create roots in a new country, with a passion for good food and excellent customer service. Learning English in school, Stupar said he had the basics, and when he arrived here there was a small community from Bosnia in the Bowling Green area.

Trained as a tool and die machinist, he said there was no work so he set on a path that would benefit everyone who stops in his café. “I started as a baker in Croatia,” Stupar said. “Jake was a restaurateur in Bosnia. He had owned a restaurant and had more experience.”

The Brickyard Café is an expansion of the first café they opened in 1998 in Bowling Green. The name was perfect, because the original building in Bowling Green housed a clay oven and was used to literally bake bricks.

When they came to Franklin looking for a place to locate the new restaurant, they liked the history of the former hardware store and decided to keep the same name as their café in Bowling Green. The Franklin store opened in 2006.

When this story runs, Stupar will be a newlywed. “I am getting married next week,” he said last month, adding the restaurant even brought him love. “My fiancée (Dorothy Miller) worked here, then I started living in Franklin,” he said, adding his father, Marko, has also moved to the area.

Wanting to put roots in the community, he sees the value in using fresh and local produce. “Chef Zach (Muminovic) has a garden and we use a local producer, as well. I started a garden, too, for basil and sage and I buy a lot of local produce from the Amish community. They have a small farm market here.”

Buying local beef through Kentucky Proud is also high on his list of priorities when he is able to purchase it. “That program is good. They provide good beef to restaurant owners,” Stupar said.

“I grew up in a big city, but as I get older, I enjoy the country.”

The Brickyard Café is located at 205 W. Cedar Street in Franklin; call 270.586.9027 for information or visit http://brickyardcafe.net