Mike and Heather Gardner are new owners of the Antler in Gainesville

Ozark County native Mike Gardner and his wife, Heather, are the new owners of the Antler Package Store and Restaurant after completing the purchase last week from former owners Matt and Jamie Bowser.  

Mike Gardner said recently that the sale came about after he got acquainted with Matt Bowser as a customer at the Antler, Gainesville's only restaurant with table service that's open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Gardner said that, since the Bowsers bought the restaurant and package store from Mike Mansfield in 2022, Matt Bowser had continued to do out-of-state contract work unrelated to the Gainesville business. Recently, Mike said, "I got a phone call from Matt saying he has a big contract job out of state that he couldn't pass up."

Matt Bowser told Mike he couldn't fulfill the contract while also managing the restaurant and package store. Their previous conversations about the business had sparked Gardner's interest in it, and he and Heather agreed to purchase it from the Bowsers. 

The Antler isn't the couple's first restaurant venture. A couple years ago, they bought the former Pizza Hut restaurant in Ava and were in the process of remodeling it and preparing it to reopen as the Crazy Beaver, serving sandwiches and wood-fired pizza. That project has now been put on hold as the Gardners focus on managing and updating the Antler. Also in Ava, they own Ozarks Tire.

In addition, the Gardners own Ozarks Wifi, which provides high-speed internet service in the Gainesville and Ava area. They also own GFPipe.com, which supplies HDPE pipe, ranging from 3/4 inch up to 8 inches, fittings, hydrants and livestock waterers. And they operate Gardner Farms Grazing System, a waterline and livestock waterer installation company (grazingsystem.com).

Another business venture they're creating is a wedding venue and treehouse accommodations on their land at Romance. The treehouses will be available for short-term rentals by wedding parties – or by the public through online reservations systems.

Re-creating a 'feel-good' kind of place

In an article and advertisement in the Feb. 12 edition of the Ozark County Times, as well as on social media, Mike and Heather have asked residents for ideas about what they should keep or discontinue as they work to improve the Antler. (Suggestions may be emailed to feedback@antlermo.com.)

The Gardners became involved in the restaurant's day-to-day operations in February, before the sale actually closed, even helping to host a Super Bowl watch party there on Feb. 9. Now they're working on simplifying the menu and taking other steps to streamline the restaurant to provide faster service, Mike said. 

"We're going to simplify it and focus on pizzas, burgers and sandwiches so that we can offer customers a good, consistent meal every time," Mike said. "We want to get it back to a place where you could go in and enjoy a delicious meal and have a good time. I want it to be the kind of place where everyone feels good about eating."

Mike and Heather have recruited their stepdaughter, Vicki Klumpp, who has 12 years of restaurant experience, to help manage the business. Klumpp, from Oregon, also served as maid of honor at the couple's outdoor wedding on June 20, 2020, atop Sister Knobs at the future Romance wedding venue.

Mike and Heather are planning to give the Antler a bit of a facelift, maybe adding some rustic touches like exposed beams and decor with "more of a lakes-and-rivers look," he said. They have made arrangements with popular Hootin an Hollarin demonstrator Jason Morton of Eagle Ridge Chainsaw Carving to shape the remaining trunk of a tree in the rear patio. It stands 18 1/2 feet tall and is 28 inches wide, and the idea is a carved bald eagle clutching an American flag in one claw, an antler in the other. And a few other surprises are to be carved in, as well, Mike said. The carving event is planned for March 27, 28 and 29. "Everyone is welcome to come out and enjoy the show and some restaurant specials," he said.

Deep roots in Ozark County

 Mike, the son of the late Eugene and Betty Gardner, grew up on family land in the Souder area that his pioneer ancestor Joseph Gardner homesteaded in the early 1800s. In 1860, Joseph Gardner was elected as a county judge, the equivalent of today's county commissioner, according to the book "History of Ozark County, 1841-1991." Mike has the original homestead documentation granted to Joseph’s son, Jackson Gardner, from the years 1859 and 1875. 

Mike graduated from Gainesville High School in 1989. In addition to the farm where he grew up, Mike and Heather also have a home on Sister Knobs in Romance. At 1,410 feet, it's one of the highest points in Ozark County and offers breathtaking views in all directions. Mike said the view extends over property in 13 counties and includes West Plains, Willow Springs, Mountain Grove, Mansfield and Sparta as well as the Arkansas communities of Omaha, Eureka Springs, North Jasper, Peel, Bull Shoals and other areas.

In recent years, the Gardners have used the high-elevation vantage point to host Romance fireworks displays that can be seen for miles. 

Heather Craig Gardner grew up in southern Oregon and worked in her family’s grocery store, Craig’s Market. Her first job, assigned by her grandpa, was to stock the bottom shelves. Later, she graduated from Southern Oregon University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She moved to the Ozarks from Chachoengsao, Thailand, where she taught English for about three years. She moved to Missouri to be near her mother, Theda Craig Wallis, who now lives in the Wasola area. She met Mike shortly after moving to Missouri in 2014, and the two were married in 2020. 

Antler history

In purchasing the Antler Package Store and Restaurant, the Gardners are returning the business to ownership by native or long-time-resident Ozark County families. 

A search of the Ozark County Times archives shows that the original native-rock building was constructed as a gasoline station in 1949 by Perry Cowart and his son, Wilber, who had graduated from Gainesville High School in 1947. The gas station stood at the junction of old Highway 5 and Route U (now Third Street) at the northwest entrance to Gainesville. 

The two men operated the gas station together until Wilber left to serve with the Army in Germany. Without his son to help him operate the station, Perry Cowart sold the business to Hugh Hackler of Mountain Home, Arkansas, who sold it to P. W. “Red” and Leona Snelling in 1955.

The Snellings, who had come to Ozark County in 1950, continued to sell gasoline, but they renamed the business Red’s Tobacco Store. It’s not known exactly when the business started selling liquor, but the county’s 1955 financial report, published in the Feb. 16, 1956, edition of the Times, includes a $50 liquor license sold to Red Snelling. 

While they continued to operate Red’s Tobacco Store and gas station, the Snellings also launched the Aromatic Cedar processing plant here in 1958. The sawmill and plant produced cedar fencing and closet lining that was sold throughout the country by Sears, Roebuck and Co. Through the years, occasional articles in the Times reported record orders of the cedar products being shipped from Aromatic Cedar. In the 1980s, the cedar plant was sold to Giles & Kendall, and now is part of the CedarSafe, a company owned by American Pacific.  

The Snellings also leased the former restaurant known as the Dairy Princess from owner Bert Henley in 1967, with Toni Wofford working as manager.

Red Snelling died in 1970, and in 1979, Leona Snelling sold Red’s Tobacco Store to Robert and Marian Grupe. A June 14, 1979, Times story said Robert had recently returned to the States from Iran, where he had worked for an oil company; they had a son who lived in Nottinghill. The Grupes renamed the business Bob’s Package Store.

Three years later, in July 1982, the business was bought by Frederik and Irena Carlsen, who had moved here from Tucson, Arizona. They renamed the business the Antler. A later owner, Robert Klineline, remembers that the Carlsens “hung antlers all over the front of the building.”

In 1988, Mark Ault and his wife, Kim, bought the Antler, which then included living quarters and a carport where the Antler’s bar counter is now. The Aults added the pizza restaurant in 1989, using sauce and dough recipes carefully developed by Mark’s mother, Susan Amyx Ault, with help from two talented cooking relatives, Patti Scruggs and Jeanette Mathis. Ault added an open-air patio with tables where customers could sit and enjoy the pizza – when the weather allowed.  

In May 1992, Mark Ault added the two-story, nine-unit Antler Motel.

Siblings Pam Klineline Cramm, Rockie Klineline (and wife Janet) and Robert Klineline (and then-wife Jackie) bought the Antler in November 1998. The sale included the package store and pizza restaurant but not the motel, which Mark Ault’s parents, John and Susan, continued to operate. In 2005, the Aults sold the motel to John and Phyllis Turner. After Phyllis’ death in 2019, John sold the motel to present owners Ray and Missy Grisham in 2020.

The Klinelines, who grew up in Gainesville and graduated from GHS, enclosed the open-air patio to create a busy, year-round pizza restaurant that was popular with residents, tourists and motorists on Highways 5 and 160. Many customers told the Klinelines they made trips from area towns just to have pizza at the Antler. 

Seventeen years later, in October 2015, one of those former out-of-town customers, Mike Mansfield, bought the Antler from the Klinelines, promising in an Ozark County Times story that “the pizza recipe won’t change.” Mansfield had moved to Ozark County four and a half years earlier from Midway, Arkansas, where he owned Fiber-Tel contractors, a company specializing in fiber optic services delivered throughout the U.S. 

Mansfield told the Times he was familiar with the Antler’s delicious pizza because he and his former wife drove up from Midway “a couple of times a month” just to eat at the Antler. After he moved here, he said, laughing, “It was more like one or two times a week.”

Mansfield sold the Antler to Matt and Jamie Bowser in March 2022.

Looking ahead

Now that the sale to Mike and Heather Gardner is completed, they are moving ahead with plans to welcome friends and customers to one of Gainesville’s oldest businesses. The Antler is open seven days a week, beginning with 7 a.m. breakfast and continuing through the evening hours. Closing times vary. For more information, call the Antler at 417-679-4598.