Spitfire Bar at home next to Dayton airport

Todd Walters and his wife own the bar on U.S. 40.

By Marc Katz, Staff Writer 7:13 PM Friday, April 30, 2010

BUTLER TWP. — One of the runways at Dayton’s International Airport in Vandalia is on a direct line with the Spitfire Bar on U.S. 40, about a mile-and-a-half west from the airport entrance.

Todd Walters, who with his wife, Lani, owns the bar, said you can hear the planes when they take off and land.

The rest of the time, it’s rather quiet around the bar, given the neighbors.

Sharing a parking lot directly east of Spitfire — named after a World War II fighter plane Walters favors — is an old boarded up motel, awaiting a new owner or new business plan.

Butler Twp. services is next to that. To the west is Polk Grove Church and Cemetery, which dates back to 1825.

In front of the bar, across U.S. 40, is mostly open land and trees.

“You would think the bar itself is out in the middle of nowhere,” said Walters, who bought the place seven years ago, renaming it from the Wild Goose.

“The reality is, you have Englewood just a mile-and-a-half to the west and you have Vandalia just a mile-and-a-half to the east. And we have all of Butler Twp. and all the Clayton area.”

While Lani had been in the bar and food business before, Todd — a Vandalia-Butler High School grad who learned advertising art at the Montgomery Co. Joint Vocational School — was working in the advertising field when he and his wife decided to go out on their own.

Too much remodeling was necessary to make the place a barbecue restaurant, but wings and other bar foods are available, and in the summers, a huge grill out back — next to the volleyball, croquet and horse shoe layouts — is popular.

Otherwise, two large bar areas, four televisions, three pool tables a dart area and a band stand dominate the inside.

Live original music bands, such as Brothers In Arms, play a half dozen times or more a year.

“I really don’t know how big the place is,” said Walters, “but we’re rated for 300. We open at 2 in the afternoon, but that’s mostly to clean up and take deliveries. A lot of things affect business, especially the smoking ban.

“But we have the luxury of owning our own building and property. I don’t know what’s going to happen with that motel. People ask about it all the time.”

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