08/13/2026
🏠Living Spaces: Finding Flow on Highview Dr
When you own and run two restaurants you become keenly aware of how important flow is to the overall scheme of things. While their personal kitchen may have been the “heart” of their Highview home, the Harkriders weren’t in love with it; it wasn’t passing the “flow test.” They decided it was time to open things up.
Brad and Jess Harkrider own Hank’s Texas Barbecue in Clintonville and last fall opened a second Hank’s north of Dublin in Delaware. Well before they started construction on the second restaurant, they decided to bite off a project closer to home…the kitchen they woke up to every morning.
JAX Construction took the wheel, following Brad and Jess’s directions to a T, “We loved the idea of making our first floor flow a little better, our kitchen to be bigger and more comfortable for entertaining and we wanted more storage space.”
In addition to combining the kitchen and old dining room, JAX reconfigured the family room and what was a first floor office. They turned the office into a mudroom and condensed the space to give more “living room” to the family room. However, when they moved the shared wall, there was one issue, the fireplace was no longer centered on the wall. Ryan Salsberry, the owner of JAX (and a Worthington Hills resident) had an idea, “We could cover the fireplace and do a full wall of built ins. We thought about it overnight and loved the idea!” The powder room got a touch-up, as well, “At that point, we just decided to redo the half bath too because everything else was being updated!”
The entire project took five months. While they had use of their oven, sink and a section of counter space for a portion of that time, the couple say any inconvenience was overshadowed by excitement, “We loved coming home each day to see the progress!”
🖊Kristen Maetzold, resident editor
