Wednesday, November 09, 2011
The cats meow for the Cat & Owl
Alleghany County's Cat & Owl restaurant celebrates its 40th anniversary.
Food writer Lindsey Nair
- lindsey.nair@roanoke.com | (540) 981-3343
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LOW MOOR — In a tree-lined cranny between the interstate and the railroad tracks in this little Alleghany County community sits a restaurant that is as much a secret to some as it is a stalwart to others.
The Cat & Owl Steak and Seafood House opened on Labor Day weekend in 1971 under the management of a 24-year-old Virginia Tech graduate named Bruce Proffitt. A 12-oz. filet mignon cost $6.95, the 24-oz. sirloin for two set customers back $9.95, and the restaurant's signature banana fritters were 50 cents per order.
In the 40 years since, the prices are about the only aspect of the business that has changed much. Indeed, the Cat & Owl is the epitome of consistency.
In the mid-1990s, while I was studying at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge, Proffitt rescued me from a nightmare restaurant job by hiring me as a hostess. But that's not why I'm writing this column; I'm writing it because of the Cat & Owl's longevity, and because Proffitt, 64, and chef Scott Dew, 46, taught me enduring lessons about competent restaurant ownership and kitchen leadership.
Upon this twoscore anniversary, I received an email from Proffitt's 25-year-old daughter, Courtney.
"Dad is so humble and focused on his day-to-day work that he wouldn't think to seek that attention," she wrote. "I'll do it for him. Forty years is a huge milestone for a restaurant, especially when it's a locally-owned, pricier place located in a county that has seen so many economic ups and downs since 1971."
The C&O
Bruce Proffitt's father, Buddy Proffitt, and uncle, Henry Dew (Scott's dad), opened the restaurant because they envisioned major growth in Low Moor. At the time, they already owned three Rainbow Drive-In locations in Southwest Virginia.
The brothers-in-law (they married sisters) wanted to name their steakhouse in honor of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, then one of the largest employers in Alleghany County. But because a C&O Restaurant already existed in Clifton Forge, they named it the Cat & Owl.
The younger Proffitt had recently graduated from college with a degree in business administration and finished active duty in the Army Reserves. His father and uncle were looking for a manager for the new place, so they turned to him.
"The interview process was pretty simple," Bruce Proffitt said. "They said, 'Do you want to do it?' and I said 'Yes.'"
At that time, the extent of his restaurant experience involved "making ice cream cones and squirting drinks" at the drive-in. To learn more about the industry, Proffitt apprenticed for two weeks at a Blacksburg restaurant called Blackbeard's, which was owned by a friend.
Other than that, he said, "what I did to learn the restaurant business, quite frankly, I learned as I went along."
But before he could start managing, Proffitt helped contractors transform a private residence into a restaurant. They fashioned an entrance to resemble a train depot, lined the walls with weathered barn wood and red velvet flocked wallpaper, installed red carpeting and decorated the place with whimsical antiques such as an old barber's chair and a player piano.
In addition, figurines of cats and owls have always played a major role in the decor.
"People are always bringing me little souvenirs of cats and owls," Proffitt said. "The place is full of them, and I've never bought a one."
Exactly the same
Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times
Bruce Proffitt has managed the Cat & Owl Steak and Seafood House since he was 24. The restaurant specializes in fresh, hand-cut steaks, including rib-eyes, tenderloins and prime ribs.
Within the first year, Proffitt decided to purchase only fresh, whole tenderloins, rib-eyes and prime ribs, which are sliced into steaks as they are ordered. He serves fresh scallops and oysters year-round, as well as high-quality frozen fish and shrimp.
These are the backbone of the classic, streamlined menu, which also offers pork chops, chicken breast, lobster tail, crab cakes and a variety of side items, including a signature stuffed potato and a simple, fresh salad bar. Appetizers and desserts round out the menu.
"I serve a lot of meals that 'most everyone likes," Proffitt said, "and that can also be prepared in a consistent manner."
For example, even though porterhouse steaks are popular, he doesn't serve them because he figured out the strip part will always cook faster than the tenderloin, thus yielding an unevenly cooked portion.
The food preparation falls to Scott Dew, Proffitt's first cousin and a Cat & Owl employee for 31 years. Some 27 years ago, Dew took the lead in the kitchen, which requires manning the broiling-hot charcoal grill where most of the restaurant's main dishes take on a tantalizing, smoky flavor. Dew has cooked so many steaks over the years that they are rarely sent back to the kitchen.
"If you come here today and you get a medium filet cooked medium-rare and you like it, and you come back and get a medium filet cooked medium-rare two weeks later, I want it to be exactly the same," Dew said.
Josh Craft, a former kitchen employee who is now principal at Falling Spring Elementary School in Alleghany County, said "Scott's loyal. People keep coming back because of the food. It is just as much the food as it is the atmosphere."
A well-oiled machine
Thirty years ago, David Arritt, who owns Arritt Funeral Home in Covington, brought a gal named Betsy to the Cat & Owl for their first date. They wound up marrying and making the restaurant a regular part of their entertainment routine.
Besides the food, Arritt said, they are drawn to the Cat & Owl for the service.
"He [Proffitt] selects waitresses who are personable, and it is not a job for them," Arritt said. "They are taking care of you and want to see to your needs."
Before he hires an employee, Proffitt sits them down at the little two-top beside the antique cash register and grills them like a rib-eye for an hour or two. After that, he consults his staff on how the candidate would fit in. Over the course of 40 years, he's hired more than 300 employees and fired only five.
Proffitt, a laid-back guy with a dry sense of humor, has lessened stress for his employees by fine-tuning the restaurant's operation to the point where he knows what to expect before it happens, and so do they.
He knows, for example, that meat should never go on the grill before a party gets up to visit the salad bar. He knows which customers will linger over dinner, so he allows extra time on the reservation books. He sweet-talks folks into coming a bit later or earlier than they had planned, always communicating the possibility that they'll have to wait a few minutes, or that hanging around too long will keep another party waiting.
As a result, jobs at the Cat & Owl are coveted — and loved. Amy Haymaker, who worked there off and on for 19 years, said she "practically grew up there." Mary Fridley, a waitress with 36 years of experience, has been working full time for Proffitt for 13 years.
A presence
It would be easy to chalk up the Cat & Owl's success to the fact that it is, for all intents and purposes, the only fine dining restaurant in Alleghany County.
But what about the fact that many regulars drive from Lexington, West Virginia, Hot Springs (in the shadow of The Homestead) and Botetourt County? Or the fact that it has survived three recessions?
Certainly, it's the food, so consistently and competently prepared by Dew; and the kind of service that makes customers feel pampered.
Most of all, I believe, it is the fact that Proffitt is present.
He figures he has spent something like 4,000 Friday and Saturday nights at the restaurant and laments the fact that it detracted from his time with wife, Anita, and daughters, Jennifer and Courtney.
"Without the understanding of my family, this could have never happened," he said. "There are not a lot of wives and families that would accept that the way my people have."
Proffitt's devotion is profoundly instructive to anyone who wants to open a restaurant.
He puts it best himself: "Nobody is going to do in a restaurant for you what you can do for yourself."
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