Don Snelling - Retiring

I remember Don way back from his junior high school days when he would get out of school and head right to work at the restaurant. Have eaten his food many times, how times flies. I think his life is worth reading about. This is an article from the Newark Advocate. There were at least 3 generations of Snellings that worked at the Aladdin, maybe four. I ate there for twenty years or so.........

GRANVILLE -- The Aladdin Restaurant's longtime proprietor, cook and so-called chief bottle washer, Don Snelling, is retiring Friday after 45 years at the restaurant.

Snelling, 55, moved to Granville when he was 10 years old. His mother, a single parent, had seven children, so he was forced to learn the ways of the world at a young age. The restaurant was his foot in the door to a career.

"We were on welfare and things were rough, and I just started busing tables there when I was in fifth grade," Snelling said. "At that time, Ralph Pettit had the Aladdin. I bused tables basically for food and school clothes. He'd feed me, and he bought me some school clothes. That helped out."

Still working his way through the Granville school system, and after busing tables for two years at the Aladdin, Snelling became the restaurant's full-time night cook.

"By the time I was in seventh grade, Brad Showman had the Aladdin and I became the night cook," Snelling said. "I learned the grill, and I became the first full-time night cook. I'd go to school (by) day and cook at night."

Snelling graduated from Granville High School in 1973, and eventually his mother took over the restaurant for about 20 years. He continued to cook for her. Then in the mid-1990s, he took over from his mother.