Longtime Huntingburg event venue under new ownership, new name: Venue 1408
Reflections, an event venue on Huntingburg’s northside, is getting some new owners as well as a major facelift.
Kim and BJoe Aull, owners of The Millhouse Restaurant & Catering in Jasper, will take over ownership of the property at 1408 Main Street in mid-December.
“We have the restaurant and the catering and it’s always been in the back of our minds to create a venue,” Kim said. “We saw this opportunity with Reflections. The building has so much potential and character. The Millhouse is similar, they both tell a story and just have a great character.”
Kim said the building has great bones so the couple plans on baring those bones to completely remodel the building to create the new business, Venue 1408. “It will be a completely different look,” she said.
The exterior will be repainted and wood columns added to the exterior as well as updated landscaping. They plan on adding a fireplace to the interior and upping the lighting. The ceilings will be removed to expose the rafters and a new wood-look floor will be installed similar to what is in the restaurant. “It will be modern and comfortable,” Kim said. “It is definitely going to be a challenge but I love interior design and I am looking forward to it.”
Kim added that the updates will enhance the northern entrance to the city.
Venue 1408 will be an event venue with catering perfect for weddings, business meetings, rehearsal dinners and more. The great room inside the building will be divided into a smaller room for up to 100 guests as well as a larger room for up to 600 people.
One thing Kim and BJoe are considering bringing back the dinner and dances to Venue 1408. “It is something we will be looking into,” Kim said.
At this point, Kim and BJoe aren’t considering the new location as an expansion of The Millhouse.They will continue to operate the restaurant in its current location and offer catering at other locations as well.
Renovation plans are still being finalized but moving forward, Kim and BJoe will be working to ensure the current bookings for Reflections are honored while setting aside time to complete the renovation. Construction should be underway in January with hopes to have all the work completed by late March of 2018.
Reflections was built in 1974 and according to Kim, as the new owners, they plan on honoring that history with a display inside the venue.
“We are so excited to see the difference we can make with this building and having our own place to cater,” Kim said. “We considered building our own venue to provide our catering through but just ended up getting busy. As our catering has become more in demand, we decided to go for it. It is good for our catering and a good property investment.”
Kim and BJoe took over The Millhouse from Tim Flick about 12 years ago.
“The support we get from our customers is amazing,” Kim said. “A purchase like this can be intimidating but the support we have from our customers and our employees is comforting. It’s exciting to know that we are in this together.”
SO GLAD THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN ITS AN AWESOME PLACE, LOTS OF MEMORIES FOR ME. THANK YOU BOTH FOR RESTORING THIS LAND MARK.
Thank you 🙂
I hope you still serve the same kind of pizza !a lot of people love it ! Good luck on another Adventure:)
We won’t have a restaurant at Venue 1408. It will have rooms available for rent for meetings, reunions, rehearsal dinners, weddings etc. Mill House Catering will cook the food for these events. The Mill House Restaurant in Jasper will stay as is. As for the pizza recipe from Reflections, I am not sure if the current owner is willing to share that or not 🙂
Sounds nice. As part of the remodel with upgraded lighting, hope it will include some windows here and there for natural light options – was always been too dark and cave-like to me. Best of luck.
Congratulations, B Joe and Kim! Just “DO IT”! Huntingburg should get very excited over the great food your new place will bring that town!
Oh yes, and for the new owners, respectfully consider simply ‘Venue’ – or, ‘The Venue’ – either will roll off tongues much easier than trying to remember and dragging along the street numbers of ‘1408’ which, with four additional syllables in an already abbreviating and consolidating culture, will be conveniently dropped if not forgotten from word-of-mouth speaking, anyway. Hope one of those windows can be of a picture variety to the west, overlooking out onto the lake and green, and/or maybe a covered patio with a view. Understand the kitchen, et al, currently takes up part of the west end so may be prohibitive, but nice addition(s) if possible.