He’d give you the shirt off his back if it was needed to help. And once you get to know him he treats you like family. Wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Andrea Hazard

Ron Haas is officially retired.
Greeting well wishers Sunday, Feb. 4 at the Stanley Community Center, Haas bid farewell to a long career as owner of Martino’s Restaurant, founded in 2004 or just under 20 years ago.
The retirement party on Sunday was organized by Sam Candler and Kelly Booth, along with the Haas family.
“As a staff we enjoyed working with Ron,” Candler said, also thanking the customers. With cheese, crackers, salsa, cheese curds, and Martino’s pizza in the mix, attendees also had the option of lemonade, beer, and chardonnay, with two retirement cakes of slightly different composition, one with a lemon and strawberry topping, another with chocolate vanilla marble.
Well wisher Andrea Hazard shared her thoughts.
“Best guy around town,” she said. “He’d give you the shirt off his back if it was needed to help. And once you get to know him he treats you like family. Wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Travis Hazard agreed.
“Great guy,” he said of Ron. With Martino’s now under the ownership of Megan and John Junker, Randy Vandeloo shared similar sentiments.
“Ron was a great businessman, a great asset to the community,” he said Sunday. “We’re going to miss him but look forward to the new owners doing just as good of a job.” With a new computer system but most everything the same in terms of menu and only the salad bar currently under question as to whether it will come back, owner Megan Junker acknowledged the magnitude of Ron’s legacy at Martino’s and in the community.
“We’ve got big shoes to fill,” she said. But Haas’ plans for retirement?
“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” he joked Sunday as well wishers shook his hand to congratulate for a life spent in community service.