Nate Randolph’s path to the hospitality industry was far from direct, but it just might have been his destiny. After years as a respected professional architect in the Huntington region, he found himself looking for a new creative outlet. 

“I started distilling as a hobby just on a whim 20 years ago,” Randolph said. “I bought a book, and learned about it, tried it out, had fun, and then kind of put that away for a significant part of my life. Then I found out that my great, great, great grandfather, who immigrated from Germany, was a distiller. And my grandfather and his father were all distillers as well, but they did it very quietly.”

Randolph learned of his ancestors’ clandestine operation when he discovered the family still hidden inside a false wall in the granary building of his family’s farm in Lowell, Ohio. Experts from the Central City Antiques District dated the still back to the 1880s. These deep familial roots in the trade turned his curiosity into a calling. Today, remnants of that same family still hang over the long, wrap-around bar in Randolph’s ambitious business venture: a three-in-one concept combining NJ Randolph Distillery, HÜCK Food and Spirits, and Harvest Hall, a spacious new event venue.

All three businesses are adjacent to each other in a large shared building on the 600 block of 4th Avenue in downtown Huntington. The property, last occupied in 2017, had slowly deteriorated into a shuttered eyesore over the last decade before Randolph stepped in.

“It really was in poor condition,” Randolph said. “It needed a lot of work.” 

Three and a half years of work to be exact. Undeterred by the building’s condition, Randolph’s construction and architectural instincts took over. He let the structure guide his vision. Working 12 to 18-hour days, seven days a week, Randolph and a friend rebuilt the historic building from the ground up.

“The building told me how it wanted to be laid out,” Randolph said with a laugh. “And then I spent three and a half years doing the construction. It was the culmination of an idea that came from another idea, that turned into three other ideas and became one idea.” 

The restoration results are stunning, and a true testament to the potential that lies in underutilized urban spaces. However, Randolph knew from the beginning that a brand new distilling business would likely need support from other areas in the early stages.

"I never considered distilling to be just 'you make liquor, you sell it, and you make money,'" Randolph explains. "You really need other things to subsidize it, to create some kind of character and fun. The whole project to me is reflective of a tourism activity. And even if you're not somebody who enjoys alcohol, you can still find enjoyment in the restaurant, or taking a tour, or finding things in our gift shop that are all local-centric.”

While the NJ Randolph Distillery prepares to fully roll out its operation in September, HÜCK Food and Spirits is already making an impact in Huntington with its delicious, scratch-made comfort food. 

"We don't make healthy food," Randolph laughs. "We use all the fat and butter. We don't do deconstructed, we don’t do gastric. We do good old home-style cooking and the reception has been really positive because I think there is a familiarity with the way we cook.” 

Just like distilling, cooking has been in Randolph’s lineage for generations. 

“I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a chef, but I am a cook. All the recipes that are on the menu are my recipes and the way I learned how to cook was from my mother, my sister and grandmother. You can taste that in the way the food is produced, for sure.” 

While he may not be formally trained, Randolph knows that quality in the kitchen starts with the details. 

“We hand-bread everything. All of our breaded items are soaked in buttermilk. We use homemade dry rubs for our pork and our ribs and our wings. We don't buy things that are pre-bagged because that translates to the palate.”

HÜCK’s culinary creations have received an overwhelmingly positive reception from customers, but Randolph is quick to emphasize that one of his main goals is to support the local business ecosystem as well. 

“We’ve recently been buying our tomatoes from a local farmer, a friend of mine. We like to promote each other. That's another great aspect of this business, being able to promote the other businesses we work with. On tap, we have local beers from Peddler, Koerber, Bad Shepherd. We try to represent local products the best that we can because it does help promote and sustain everybody else.”

That same collaborative approach extends to the third business in Randolph’s trifecta: Harvest Hall. Boasting a gorgeously restored interior and a maximum capacity of 499 standing (or up to 250 seated at round tables), Harvest Hall’s potential as an event space is evident immediately upon entry. The venue recently hosted a Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours event with well over 300 guests, and Randolph is currently working with local non-profits like Dress for Success, Facing Hunger Foodbank, and The Children’s Home Society of West Virginia on upcoming events.

“For the event space, I think success looks like at least two events a week. We're building up a lot of interest and momentum with our local partners and non-profits. With event spaces, people are always looking well in advance, so you're thinking about a project a year away, or six months or nine months.” 

While larger gatherings like corporate events, reunions, weddings, and fundraisers are the main focus of Harvest Hall, Randolph does see the space doubling as a venue for live entertainment in the future. 

“We've been doing some test runs with live music on the bar side, and my plan is to have live music every Saturday each month. We want to be able to do live music predominantly on the restaurant side, not in the banquet room. But as we grow, and as we start to fill out our events calendar, I have every intention of booking larger music acts in Harvest Hall.” 

For entrepreneurs and investors eyeing downtown Huntington’s vacant spaces, HUCK, NJ Randolph Distillery, and Harvest Hall serve as a bold proof-of-concept. With a payroll that already supports around 28 staff members, Randolph views this venture as a long-term investment in Huntington's economic future. He sees major regional developments like Nucor and Marshall University’s Cybersecurity Program as signs of a city on the cusp of something much bigger. 

“We're on the edge of what I hope to be a population boom that we haven't seen in a half century, and we're going to be the cultural center for a lot of that,” Randolph said. “We’ve got these great tools like Marshall University, great hospital systems, a river system, manufacturing. We have a food scene. And we have a lot of great, unique places where people are doing great and unique things. We're creating a community that's built around culture, food, and the arts.”

Like anything worth doing, creating that community isn’t easy. Nate Randolph wouldn’t have it any other way.  

“Quite honestly, it's the hardest work I've ever done in my life,” he said with a laugh. “And I’ve done some hard work. But I'm pushing all my chips to the center, and we're gonna make this work. If that means I have to be back there cooking, or in front of the cash register, or making a drink, or refilling a water, you’re damn right I'm going to do every bit of that. Do I have a touch of insanity? Probably. But between insanity and tenacity, you're going to get something done."

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