Out in Garden Springs, Dad’s Deli’s popularity continues to grow, despite being off the eaten path
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Dad's Deli owner James Caudill. PHOTO BY EMILY MOSELEY
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James Caudill is sometimes accused of making it hard for people to come eat at his restaurant, Dad’s Deli, which showcases the handful of cheese spreads, called Dad’s Favorites, Caudill has created in the past few years.
The soup and sandwich shop is virtually hidden in the back of the Garden Springs Shopping Center’s arcade shops, and their small window of business is only 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, I’ve got a real job and I can’t get over there,’” Caudill said. “And I say, ‘Well, I’m sorry.”
But for those that can make it out to Dad’s for lunch, and there are many, they don’t mind. The lines are already long enough.
On a busy day in early April, as the line to the counter started to backup down the arcade’s hallway, Caudill, in an ever-present flat cap, was taking the time to speak with people waiting to order, check on some tables, and even get his picture taken with some customers who had reached the upper level in the deli’s loyalty program. If a customer buys 10 sandwiches, and keeps track of their card, the 11th is on the house. At first, the used cards would be displayed on the walls, but wall space filled up quickly. To conserve space, they said for those loyal customers who filled up three cards, they would get their framed photo, with Caudill, mounted on the wall. Now, after all the walls have been festooned with used cards and photos, a digital photo screen displays slideshows of the most recent faithful eaters.
Caudill, who employees his two sons, Jayson and Jeff, in the deli and in the cheese spread operations of the business, says that customer interaction, and definitely appreciation, is just as important as the food.
“That’s one thing I tried to instill in my boys – you want to treat people the way you would want to be treated. They want to know you, you want to know them,” Caudill said. “The ones that don’t want to know us, they aren’t going to be our customers anyway.”
The deli opened in October of 2010. To keep up with the growing demand for Caudill’s cheese spreads, Caudill fitted a commercial kitchen in Garden Springs Shopping Center earlier that year. The space had a small front, which Caudill intended to paper over since they were making the spreads in the back, but Joe Singleton, who owns and works at Garden Springs Barber Shop across the hallway, said that he had four barbers who eat out every day. The owners of next-door Alterations & Sew Much More echoed the same notion.
At minimum, Caudill figured that serving simple sandwiches might be a good way to market the handful of spreads they were producing in the back. They would put a table out in the hallway in case a customer wanted to hang out and eat.
“If we can make a $100 a month to pay the electric bill, we’ll be happy,” Caudill remembers saying about the idea. “Next thing you know, one table turned into 10. ... It’s one of those things where we had no idea that it was going to take off like this. But we figured, if we put the love in it, if we try to make food that we like, let’s see if other people like it.”
The quick and robust popularity of Dad’s Deli runs parallel to the cheese spreads, which Caudill started producing, commercially at least, in 2008. Prior to that, always fond of cooking, he would prepare the spreads for parties or other social gatherings.
He remembers one tailgate where someone first gave him the idea to make the spreads for retail.
“Somebody stood up and said, ‘Who made this?’ I kind of cringed,” Caudill recalls. “I thought somebody had gotten sick or something.”
Instead, the person implored Caudill to get the items on the market. At the time, Caudill had been in the insurance business for over 20 years, and as the economy began to slow in 2007 and customers were slashing their coverage, Caudill, prodded by his partner, Susan Bratton, to do something he was passionate about, entertained the idea of a career realignment.
He was also taxed, mentally, as his oldest son, Jayson, was stationed as an MP in Iraq. Hours and hours in the kitchen would be a welcome distraction.
“He was ‘outside the wire’ for 14 hours a day,” Caudill says, referring to Jayson being outside the confines of a military base while on duty, “and I tried to do something to keep my mind off of it, so I started making it.”
Later, on a whim, Caudill took a plain container of his spread (it didn’t even have a label at that time) to Liquor Barn to see if the deli manager would be interested. Serendipitously, the buyer was there; she wanted to know if it was somebody trying to sell another beer cheese.
“I said, ‘No, I’d rather have a fresh beer in my hand than a flat one in my cheese,” Caudill said. The buyer laughed and took a taste. She asked everybody to try it. She said she had to have it in all six locations before Derby, and it was early April.
“I’ve been in sales all my life. You never say no,” Caudill said. “I was like a dog chasing a car that caught it – now what was I going to do with it.”
A lot happened in the coming weeks – forms and inspections and fees from various state and local departments, labels and logos for the different spread varieties – but Caudill got his spreads (now called Dad’s Favorites, as Caudill was always known to feed his kids’ friends after sports practice) into the Liquor Barn locations.
Then Dad’s picked up a small contract for some local Kroger grocery stores. By that time, Jayson was back from Iraq and unemployed, and his other son, Jeff, who had recently graduated from UK, was also without a job. Caudill thought he may have enough work for the three of them.
“I said, ‘Guys, I’ve got a Kroger account, I think it will support us,’” he said. “It’ll be a little lean at first, but let’s see what we can do.”
Dad’s Favorites started out being available in about eight to 10 locations, now Caudill says his products are in around 60 spots, including Liquor Barn and Kroger locations in Kentucky and Ohio, as well as regional farmers markets.
Along with being available in a growing number of outlets, the spreads have also begun to amass a number of local awards and accolades, such as the people’s choice award at the Incredible Food Show two years in a row and “Best KY Proud Food” at Taste of the Bluegrass. One contest even dubbed Dad’s as “best beer cheese,” even though they weren’t producing a beer cheese – a deliberate business decision since “in Kentucky, everything is beer cheese,” Caudill says.
“I had a recipe for a beer cheese, but I didn’t want to make it because everybody from Aunt Betty to Uncle Bill in Kentucky makes a beer cheese, and theirs is always the best,” he said. “So, I said I didn’t want to get in that business.”
However, as a recent gesture to Country Boy Brewing for their one-year anniversary, Caudill and his family whipped up a batch of beer cheese using Country Boy’s Stampin’ Ground Nitro Porter beer. It was such a hit that Caudill, after years of saying he wouldn’t, has decided Dad’s will begin producing its first beer cheese.
And for those who have given Caudill a hard time about his hours, he’s scouting out locations for a second Dad’s Deli, possibly even with longer hours, so maybe it will be easier for others to stop in for a bite.