Mealeys History
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Mealey's Hotel (formerly the Utz Hotel), like its parent town New Market, has undergone a series of changes since 1793, when the first part of the building was constructed. Also in the spirit of the town, the changes have preserved the flavor of the past while they have met the demand of the present. The first demand was for a store and probably for limited living quarters. Early in the nineteenth century, John Roberts built his store. Although it looks quite different today, the original structure is intact, a colonial log building now enclosed in the larger brick hotel, the present site of Mealey's Restaurant.

The back of the hotel building has a slightly different story to tell. In what is now the main dining room, the Pump Room, there sits an antique wooden water pump. Its function now is decorative, a conjurer of nostalgic visions of earlier days. Once it graced the courtyard behind the hotel, serving fresh water to the guests and their horses, helping to wet the dry palates of wayfarers on the National Highway. In those days there were many travelers, drovers and drayman bringing their wares to the western counties from Baltimore. The settlers and homesteaders, heading into the uncertainty and challenges of the West, needed a place to rest along the way. Mealey's was such a place, and their first stop was usually at the pump.

But horses, buggies and even drummers were things of the nineteenth century, and the twentieth century had arrived. With it came changes that affected the hotel. When the telephone lines were extended to New Market, the phone company needed a place for a temporary exchange. The Utz Hotel was the place. When the National Pike had to be paved because of the increase of automobile traffic, the construction superintendents lodged at the Utz Hotel. When New Market needed a high school, students attended classes at the Utz Hotel while the school was being built. Mealey's, as perhaps its name implies, has always been known as a place for a good meal. As a hotel, the building has maintained a reputation for gracious hospitality. Mealey's is no longer a hotel, but the tradition continues...