We visited recently with Trish Koodrich who, along with her husband Rich, founded the two Picc-A-Deli Cafes in Westlake. We toured the cafe at King James Office Park, and listened as Trish described the restaurant's remarkable growth and the delicacies they serve;
Picc-A-Deli Cafe's King James location was opened on November 18, 2002. My husband and I have always loved to cook and entertain, which lead our friends to ask, "We're having a dinner party. Can you help us plan the menu, can you cook the food, could you drop it off?" We finally started a small catering basis about seven years ago, just out of our home. It was more of a hobby than anything else.
After more than twenty years in corporate sales, I lost my job in 2002, and made the decision to not return to the corporate world. When we found out that this location was available, I realized that it would be perfect for my catering business. They told us that if we took the space, we'd also have to open a cafe for the buildings' tenants. With some trepidation, we decided to do it, and the Picc-A-Deli Cafe was designed. My husband came up with the name, Picc-A-Deli Cafe, because we're located in King James which immediately conjures up thoughts of London. As London is one of our favorite places, we put a spin on Piccadilly and came up with Picc-A-Deli Cafe, King James to give the cafe a London flair.
Picc-A-Deli Cafe offers everything from breakfast through lunch. We do corporate lunches, hot breakfasts, hot lunches, lunch entrees, and pastries. Our high-end catering handles everything from small birthday parties to wedding receptions.
We're known for our wraps, sandwiches, and our bakery. We're very picky about everything we do. All of our food is fresh, and we use only the finest ingredients. Our chicken is nothing but all white meat and it's baked fresh every day after marinating 24 to 48 hours in our own special marinade. All of our specialty sandwiches are named for the streets around the King James area. We went through looking at street names, and then we designed sandwiches to go along with them. All of our salads use the best, vitamin-packed vegetables such as red leaf lettuce, Romain lettuce, and mesculen. Our tuna salad, chicken salad, and egg salad are made from scratch, and everything we serve is packed full of nature's finest nutrients. We don't serve our customers anything we wouldn't serve to guests in our own homes. We use the best ingredients and don't skimp on anything. When you come into Picc-A-Deli Cafe, you know you're going to get a hearty, healthy salad.
We're really proud of our clientele and we're proud of what we produce here. We're very clean, very neat, very health-conscious, and I think that has been the reason our business has become so successful in the past two and a half years.
Picc-A-Deli Cafe is like Cheers without the alcohol. Our customers come in, and we know them by name and we know what they eat. It's a fun, relaxed atmosphere and there's always a smile on everybody's face. Everybody who works here is one big happy family, and our customers relate to that. They know about us, we know about them.
Our soups are made fresh every morning. In the winter months, we have two soups a day, always a homemade chicken soup, in addition to a specialty soup. During the summer months, we have one soup each day.
For breakfast we serve omelets, eggs, toast, and everyone just loves our muffins. We bake a variety of muffins, in addition to cinnabuns, scones, cookies, and brownies. We have a nice variety of desserts.
Our other location is at the Westlake Library. We have a Picc-A-Deli Cafe right in the library that's proven to be quite a success. We have mothers who drop by in the evening when they're taking their kids to an event at the library. They love it and tell us, "I don't have to run through a fast food restaurant. I can come in here and get a healthy sandwich and soup for my children, and we have dinner." It gives them a chance to get some quality time in with their busy schedules.
We have people who have a library outing each week and they're also regulars at our cafe. We send homemade soup and sandwiches to our library location every day. They bake their own scones and cookies, so you can smell the chocolate chip cookies or the cinnabuns when you walk in the door. It's quite enticing. When you go to the library to read, you have this cinnamony, chocolate smell that's proven to be very successful.
One of the things that we accomplished last year that I'm very, very proud of, is being chosen by the City of Westlake to organize the food for President Bush's visit. It was quite a compliment to receive a phone call from the Mayor's office asking if we could help cater the President's visit. I thought she meant lunch for twelve Secret Service people, but she kept saying, "Sit down." I said, "I'm fine, what do you need? I'm sure we can pull it out."
She said, "We're talking about 30,000 people." It was quite a shock and then, my business sense kicked in, and it was like an Apprentice episode. I went down to the Stonehouse Grill, two doors down from me, and introduced myself. I told the owner what was going on and I thought he was going to fall off his stool. I said, "Well, are you in or are you out? I've got to do this. I don't have a lot of time, and I want another Westlake business that's close to us."
We teamed up together, and the city had already called Gepetto's, so between the three of us, we served and we fed 30,000 people. We had from Monday at 3:00 in the afternoon until Thursday at 5:00 in the morning to turn it around and be ready to roll. Everything had to be on the grounds, but no later than 6:30 in the morning because once the Secret Service went through, you couldn't bring another thing on the grounds. So, we went non-stop for 48 hours and fed the masses. It was such an honor to be a less than two year old business and have the Mayor's office call us and ask us if we would like to coordinate it and organize it.
That was one of our biggest accomplishments, and I think it speaks volumes. We're a small business in Westlake that's growing quickly. When we started, I had one employee, myself, and my husband. I now have eleven employees between both the King James and Library location. So, we are a growing business, and we're very proud of it.
I'd also like to mention the benefit that we do for the American Cancer Society. Both my parents died from cancer and my husband was diagnosed with cancer so it's a subject that's very close to my heart. I went last year to Steinmart and said, "I'd like to do a benefit for the Cancer Society. Would you guys like to team up with me?" They said, "That'd be great," and so we did an evening on the Queen Mary II.
This year we did something a little different. It's called Passport to the Cure, and the whole concept is that you're going to take a trip around the world. You're going to have food that would be featured and things that you might find in different countries, like quiche from France, raviolis from Italy, and we're doing a Western theme. Every table will have a different international theme. We have sponsors that buy a table and that money goes to the Cancer Society. All of the proceeds, 100% go to the Cancer Society, and that goes to the Westlake Relay for Life, so we're keeping it within our community.
We're really proud of this event. It's on May 22nd and will be at the Steinmart store. Steinmart will be closed, but for all of the people that are there, the store will be open for shopping. There'll be gifts, raffles, and all kinds of free food. We'll have a reflexologist, a spa, and Jeffrey Paul will be there talking about hair loss and cancer. The Wigs for Kids group will be there, as will the OE Meyer Health Services who work with local hospices.
The Cutting Garden Westlake is donating flowers again this year, and Deluca's in the Park is supplying a beautiful ice sculpture. The community has really stepped up and helped us with this, and we plan to do it every year. This is an annual event, and we'll have tickets at the door, both at the Picc-A-Deli at the Library, and at King James, as well.
