So we bought this property in 2001 and it was a liquor store at that time and but the restaurant started in 2008 and that's when we started.
I started working here at the Red Cheney in 2007, and at that time they were still building and working on the restaurant.
It was just a liquor store bait shop, and I was more excited about just helping them get something new going.
You know, And and the idea of having a barbecue place in the small town that we hadn't had anything like that really far was exciting.
And so I started helping them then, and I've been with them since then, just through all the struggles and, you know, the good times and the bad times both.
There's there's absolutely zero things easy about running a restaurant, but I'd say the people that that are employed here work here, they make it happen.
I come in about an hour and a half to 2 hours before we open, and then everyone else kind of shows up a little bit after I've been here.
So I'd like to be the first one here, kind of get ready to go and then prep it up and get ready to go for the day.
Setting up the register.
I'll go to the grocery store and get some groceries just for like our daily stuff.
And then we close it down.
And I'm usually here an hour or 2 hours after close and then turn around, come back and do the next day.
We make our food, almost all the food from scratch.
It's all made in-house.
And as far as on the menu, the most popular dish here, the chips and probably the whole woolpack real popular.
Another one.
The burgers are popular for us.
There are smoked burgers in most places.
Don't do that.
So some kind of different.
As far as the menu goes.
I think the most unique thing to our restaurant is probably the Frog Pollard sandwich.
There is a man, his name was Frog Pollard, and he was was a cook and everybody knew him back in my day as a youth and he worked at the Junction as a cook and other places, but he would make this sausage breakfast thing for Mrs. Branson.
And after the breakfast lunch at the junction where my wife worked as a in high school, he would make the sandwich from which was just leftover breakfast sausages on white bread with pickles and maybe some butter.
And after my wife and I got married, we would have this sandwich occasionally.
And we just called them frog sandwiches after Frog Pollard, and we kind of upgraded that thing and we put it on our menu as this and we make the sausage here, we grind our own pork, seasoned it, put it all together and make this frog Pollard sandwich and that's how that's how I got to be here.
And I think food is very important, atmosphere is important and staff those three things are probably the major, you know, being friendly to people.
You know, we want people to come back.
We want them to enjoy the experience.
It's it's more than just the food.
It's it's everything all together, packaged in one can that are both really into like antiques and collectibles.
And you can tell it shows in the decor that, you know, they're really their thing.
My uncle Nana had done it and they're one of their businesses not saying it.
And other businesses look like a good fit for me.
We have a basement level that a lot of the prep cooking is done to kind of get things ready, prepare stuff.
The smoker is down in the basement level as well.
It's an old hickory pit smoker.
It was actually manufactured here in Missouri.
And we smoke all the meat here, you know, anywhere from some meats only smoked for an hour or so.
Some meats like the pulled pork smoked for like 15 hours.
So we got a really long smoked time.
We run with like a staff of around ten, 10 to 12.
It kind of varies sometimes, you know, we'll have less, sometimes we'll have more.
And it's very much like being in a family, you know, having a family away from family.
Basically, we're closed three days of the week because it's such a small staff.
It's a week.
Wednesday through Saturday are the best days.
You know, we can get things done and people still have time off.
We're not working ourselves completely all the time.
This town is really good about supporting each other.
I feel like, you know, we do things for the schools.
They come in and they'll, you know, they'll bring in people from their different school events and whatnot are definitely important, especially in small towns, because, you know, you got you don't have a whole lot of population here.
So you got to kind of branch out and and work with each other.
This place operates because I have great people.
I mean, Josh, Kasey and Jake and Jay and and Jessie and all my servers.
This happens because they work really hard and they do a great job.
It happens because of them.
The ones that pull it off.
Are very proud of them.
We're open Wednesdays and Thursdays, 11 to 8, and then Fridays and Saturdays 11 to 9.
We are mostly active on Facebook, so if you follow us on Facebook, that's a good way to keep track of like if we're closed for any particular reason.
Sometimes we do vacations where we'll close for a week so that everybody kind of spend time with their families.
And then we have a website a red Cheney cafe dot com.
If you go to that there's some information on there and we try to keep it updated as accurately as we can.
But yeah.
I want to be thought of as a good place to come.
I wanted a little calmer, more peaceful, relaxing atmosphere or she would come and visit a little bit.
And with your family, I want them to come in and be amazed by the way it looks from the inside.
You know, I get a lot of people that come in and they say, Wow, you know, I didn't realize that you had all this going on in here.
From the outside, you can't really tell.
And so I like that they are they're surprised about that.
And I want to fill them up, make them fall and make them happy.
And then I want them to come back and want to bring their friends and their family along, you know, and and check us out again.
You know, give us another shot and see how things are.
And join us for more meals.
I mean.
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