The West End Cafe was established on December 4 1980. It was originally located at the corner of Brookstown Ave. and W Fourth St. I purchased the Cafe from Jason and Mary Hanney who lent their name to it. Naturally I had to chose a new name for it and lacking in imagination I chose "WEST END CAFE".

The concept has really not changed much over the years. The original menu consisted of sandwiches, salads, soups and of course our "world famous chili". Although the original chili recipe was given to me by Jason it evolved over time under my considerable culinary talent to truly deserve the current name "ROB'S WORLD FAMOUS CHILI" even if I haven't made a batch in over a year.

The Cafe of old was very small with only 8 counter seat and 7 booths. The location was originally called "The Toddle House". It was open 24 hours a day 365 days a year from 1946 until the late 60's. They served a very basic menu consisting of burgers, sandwiches and breakfast all day. Customers still speak of their icebox pies.

I purchased Jason and Mary's concept because it was a good one that I thought I could still improve on. They served good food in generous portions at a reasonable price. The service was quick and friendly served up by a staff that enjoyed their jobs even though it was very hectic at times. I was determined to continue this concept and still am.

My effort to improve on their concept was to try to be a little more customer friendly. The menu that I inherited for example had written across the bottom NO SUBSTITUTIONS. PERIOD! Also Jason had a temper and wouldn't hesitate to tell a customer where they could stuff it if they got a little testy. So I started being nice to the customers and I made them great big sandwiches for the same price and lost a butt load of money the first 6 months I was open! Maybe it was time to check the food cost and labor and overhead!

Anyway, the fairly small menu, which I started with, began to evolve. Over the years things like pita bread and chicken and "What a Dog" and l0C's and 12C's, spinach salads and Heavy Hoagies all found their way on the menu. Some ideas were mine, some were from customers and some from the staff. It is a fact that a little girl named "Cat" that worked for me put an item called a "Veggie Burger" on the menu board completely with out my knowledge! YUK!

Change can be a good thing and change is what I came to want! So after working there for 17 years I decided to look for a new challenge.

Enter David Martin and Stacy Griffin. We began our search for the new West End Cafe. We looked and looked and finally found it about 200 feet away. Being that we didn't have any money we then looked and looked for someone to give us some. We found out pretty soon that there wasn't anybody. So we did the All-American thing and borrowed it! Building the new Cafe with other people's money was a great idea! We soon found out they wanted their money back. The mission begins!

MISSION STATMENT

The continued success of the West End Cafe depends on the quality of our products, the quality of our staff and the quality of our management. We have been blessed with great volume ever since we opened here on April 21 1998.Our job is to protect that volume and we take it very seriously. The cafe needs a staff that works together, works hard and gets along. We need a well-trained staff that has all the tools they need to do the job required of them. We need a staff that keeps the customer foremost in their minds.

The restaurant business can be as rewarding as it can be frustrating. If everyone works as a team and towards the goal of consistently high standards of food and service we will all reap the rewards this business can provide.

Thank you,

Rob Shay
David Martin
Stacy Griffin