March 2026.
Budd Dairy Food Hall, formerly the Budd Dairy Company, is an exemplary model of early 20th century factory construction. Slathered with terra-cotta ornament and full of fun historic details, its adaptive reuse is a very successful one. Columbus doesn’t have many industrial buildings that were designed with such care as Budd Dairy.
Budd Dairy is located at 1086 North 4th Street in the Italian Village neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by 4th Avenue to the north, Detroit Avenue to the south, 6th Street to the east, and 4th Street to the west.
History
One of Budd’s delivery wagons in 1914. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
The S. T. Budd Dairy Company was founded in November 1894 by farmer Simon T. Budd, receiving its milk directly from his farm near Mifflinville, about seven miles northeast of Columbus. At that time, most dairies were owned directly by farmers who delivered their own farm’s products to customers. Most of Columbus’s 48 dairies at the time were named after individuals, meaning that they operated similarly to Budd’s small-scale practice. However, as new technology and safety standards became popular, namely pasteurization and glass bottling, the processing and delivery of milk became a more industrialized process.
In line with these trends, by 1906, Budd Dairy had expanded enough to have a larger factory building, and they distributed about 60 gallons a week. The NRHP listing claims it was at 1390 Indianola Avenue (then Wesley Street), but checking the 1901 Sanborn map shows that a house stood on the site just as it does today. Simon Budd’s son William bought out his father in 1906 and incorporated the business as the Budd Dairy Company. William Budd was an inventor and natural businessman, patenting a cracker sorting machine in 1902 and founding the Budd-Ranney Manufacturing Company in 1905 to manufacture tools and machinery. He took the same approach to Budd Dairy, developing a rating system for milk they sourced and an order/payment tracking system.
A postcard of the building circa 1920. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
The Budd Dairy Company’s factory received a permit for construction on January 31, 1915, and the building and its machinery cost $100,000. It was designed in the Commercial style by Columbus firm David Riebel & Sons, though William Budd was credited with the design by multiple other sources. This part of the building consists of the angled brick building nearest 4th Street and a garage for delivery wagons.
A 1923 advertisement for Budd Dairy from an Ohio State football program. (NRHP listing)
Upon opening, it was lauded as one of the most technologically advanced dairies in the entire country. The basement of the factory was used for refrigeration equipment, ice manufacturing, and a steam engine to compress ammonia gas for refrigeration purposes. The taller two-story area was used for offices and ice storage on the first floor and as an assembly hall on the second, and the one-story wing was for dairy production. Other features of the building included a washing and sterilizing system for the air, and it went through 10-12,000 gallons of water a day to refrigerate the milk. It produced 900 gallons of milk a day, which was delivered by a team of 20 wagons. The exterior was illuminated by electric lights at night.
Budd Dairy saw an increase in demand soon after completing their factory building, up to 3,000 gallons a day and 40 delivery wagons, so the company built another garage attached to the first one in 1919 to store the new wagons. By 1925, the company reached 9,000 gallons of milk produced a day and served one out of every four families in Columbus, a ten-fold increase since a decade prior. In addition to the horse-drawn delivery wagons, Budd Dairy also used automobiles to deliver milk by 1925, including early electric trucks. These were charged in the garage and were the first such use by a dairy in the entire United States.
Snippet of the 1922-1951 Sanborn map showing the large footprint of the dairy. (Library of Congress)
A fire damaged the southern portion of the second garage in the late 1920s, and it was rebuilt using a concrete frame in 1929 versus the brick bearing walls of the original. In August of that year, a third wagon shed was built, which was offset from the second to create a small courtyard. The construction of two additional garages in just 14 years indicates how quickly the company grew. Aside from the garages, the only modification to the site after construction was a steel-framed addition that connected the dairy building to the garages. It blocked a then-seldom used alleyway and was completed in 1955.
An interesting tidbit that isn’t touched on in the NRHP listing but mentioned on the food hall’s website is Budd Dairy’s 1923 advertisement in The Fiery Cross, a newspaper published by the Ku Klux Klan. Naturally, the dairy was immediately boycotted by Columbus’s Black population, soon joined by Jews and Catholics. This caused a loss of 600 gallons of milk orders daily and has been attributed as one of the earliest successful boycotts based on race.
Budd Dairy as the Hamilton Milk Company circa 1927. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)
William Budd sold his interest in Budd Dairy in 1924 to focus on his other businesses, as the NRHP listing puts it, or maybe to cut his losses after the company’s boycott. The Budd Dairy Company was acquired by the Crane Ohio Ice Cream Company in April 1924, sold again to Moore’s & Ross Inc. (a large Columbus dairy that operated until 1988) in 1926, and the factory was finally purchased by Hamilton Milk Company in 1928, another Columbus dairy that was a subsidiary of Borden Dairy. Borden went on to acquire the dairy buildings itself in 1934, operating them until 1967. They still maintained the Hamilton name until the 1950s, when the “Borden’s” prefix was added to the Hamilton Milk Company’s title.
After Borden closed the former Budd Dairy plant in 1967, they used it for records storage beginning in 1970, as the company moved its main offices to Columbus that year. However, Borden moved again to Houston in 1988, leaving the factory vacant until it was sold in 1995.
The building prior to its adaptive reuse. (Ohio Redevelopment Projects)
The process of restoring and reusing the Budd Dairy building began in 2017. Developers received a grant to begin the project that year, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as well. Its new use would be a food hall as part of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants. It was near completion in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its opening. Budd Dairy Food Hall finally opened in April 2021 and has operated successfully since.
Photos
Budd Dairy is one of my favorite buildings on the north side. It has a strong sense of character through its lively facade decorated with terra-cotta ornamentation, and it indicates the quality factories were built with prior to the “form follows function” era. Its popularity is very indicative of the general public’s appreciation of historic buildings that are well-restored.
Anyways, I started on the north side of the building and worked clockwise from there.
The office area distinguishes itself immediately with its height and larger window openings. The factory is longer and has a shorter roof height.
These sliding steel doors are not original, the northern end was built with large windows like the south. They probably date to Hamilton/Borden’s use of the factory:
The nearby garages:
The ones nearest my perspective here with the stepped parapets are the oldest garage, built with the factory in 1915, and its companion built in 1919 and rebuilt in 1929. The oldest one is part of the food hall and has a pizza restaurant inside as of 2026. However, the other two garages are not accessible to the public and have other businesses inside of them.
These windows are very square and industrial, and the lintels and sills appear to be concrete. Definitely a transition away from late 19th-century factory construction.
At the corner of 4th and 6th--this is the most recent garage at left:
They lack lintels of any kind, have much larger rectangular window openings, and the concrete base goes right up to the window sills.
Rounding the corner of 6th and the alley…getting close now to some industrial goodness, be patient:
Gotta eat your vegetables (these bland garages) before we can have dessert. I know certain parts of these historic buildings can be a slog, but it’s important for me to paint the whole picture. Unless 1920s proto-Modern factory construction is your thing…go figure.
Ah, this courtyard has been hit with all the gentrification classics:
I swear, there must be some millennial with a flannel and man bun who writes a whole code checklist that developers must follow these days. Edison bulbs, minimalist black fencing and windows, uncomfortable outdoor seating…it’s just missing the fire pits and pink neon sign reading “Did someone say tacos?” Seriously, how did the generation preceding mine go from scene kids and Y2K maximalist everything in their youth to painting their entire house white, black, and gray? I know trends are cyclical and react to ones that came before, but can we go back please?
I digress. This is the 1919 garage’s new front:
Presumably that crane on the second floor was used to hoist and store hay for the horses.
The 1919 garage has a massive steel lintel above the doors, pretty gnarly:
Okay, time for the good stuff. Here’s an oblique view of the dairy building from the southeast now:
The very ordered construction of the production wing is pretty obvious here--large window openings separated by slightly projecting brick piers. Despite the building’s horizontal nature, it actually achieves a lot of vertical emphasis with the piers and their terra-cotta crowns.
Here’s a nice view of the corner here--I guess I got lucky coming at 4pm, you can see the lights along the cornice, which amazingly seem to be in the original sockets:
The nearby smokestack has been truncated, but the iron reinforcements and bands of terra-cotta still remain:
For once I think that the white vinyl windows actually fit here, since their tone somewhat matches the terra-cotta:
The openings are original (as evidenced by the terra-cotta sill below), but the original windows are long gone and have been replaced by these ones.
Time for some details of this sweet terra-cotta goodness. Here’s the cap to one of the piers and the slightly jutting cornice above it:
The chain was used to hang a now-missing canopy above this area.
One of the panels above the windows:
I see this kind of motif pretty often on Commercial style buildings, but it’s less common to have the terra-cotta accents. The two-tone block in the middle with flower petals is very interesting.
Can you tell I love architectural terra-cotta?
Chicago School and Louis Sullivan are my favorite, after all. One day I’ll get around to doing Chicago in some form…it’s a very daunting amount of photography work, considering how long Columbus took (6 months of trips two to three times a week).
A nice frontal view of the office wing:
It has a very similar form to the dairy production area, just taller. The main entrance is on the right, and a modern canopy uses the original chain hangers.
Not sure what’s up with the four different types of brick here:
The raised parapet with the company’s name emblazoned:
Does the font look familiar?
It should…it’s Garamond, which this blog uses.
I particularly like the weaving, floral panels that the corner of the parapet uses. The surrounding blocks are a bit wonky, though:
A lovely angled view from 4th Street:
The terra-cotta and massive signs also had another purpose--they were an advertisement to motorists or carriages going up 4th Street. Even today I always ogle Budd Dairy while driving that way (which is often, since my girl lives on 4th Street, and it was quicker than High Street for getting to my old house in Old North).
4th Street facade of the office wing, which is two bays wider:
This was the original entrance to the office wing, though it is no longer a public entrance. Seems like Riebel never let go of his classical tendencies…it is an abstracted terra-cotta version of a Beaux-Arts portico.
Also loving the glazed white version of the floral pattern seen earlier in green on the parapet:
Another view closer up, which also includes the keystone:
Parapet letters here are looking a bit worn:
Looking southeast now:
Budd Dairy was one of the few buildings open to the public that I was able to pop inside. Here’s a look down the food hall and bar area:
I had Cluck Norris on a different occasion with my girlfriend here…it was pretty good, if a little pricey.
Looking at one of the larger south windows:
Eastern end and the karaoke stage:
Seems like there was once a sliding door or something that was removed here--the glazed brick yields to different layers of crusty brick:
I was loving the wooden partitions and vintage-inspired light fixtures in the office wing:
The glazed brick walls are easy to clean, but they also lend a sense of sanitation to the building. These are common on industrial and medical buildings of the era.
I like the composition of this one:
Dang…I love a good wood floor and warm lighting. Miss me with those cold fluorescents.
This is how to do contemporary adaptive reuse right. No interference with the original architecture, just clearly modern furniture and fixtures that either react to the style of the time (as in the lights) or blend into the background (the chairs). Therefore, the old shines through and has the most emphasis.
There is a secondary staircase here, which has a more utilitarian steel design:
The original main entrance and staircase are down the hallway from a few photos ago. The staircase seems to also be original, and the doorways here have their wood doors and transoms:
I went up to the second floor and seemed to have been teleported to the Kahiki…what kind of tiki bar nonsense is this?
This was the public hall at one point in time, but the partitions seem to have been knocked out at some point. Not really a fan of the uniform black walls, it is a departure from the lightness of the floor below.
Another set of stairs nearby leads up to a rooftop terrace, which is new. It is used as a bar nowadays.
Budd Dairy is such an interesting building, and it’s a very successful adaptive reuse project, too. It gets a lot right for being a more contemporary-minded renovation.
Sources:
https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/100000664
https://budddairyfoodhall.com/location/history/
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/postcard/id/40478
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63837784@N08/31767497990/
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/memory/id/10123
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084cm.g4084cm_g06656190102/?sp=78
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/ohio/id/13247
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084cm.g4084cm_g06656195103/?sp=92
https://columbusunderground.com/long-awaited-budd-dairy-food-hall-opens-today-sp1/