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BY DUSTY LUTHY
dluthy@paducahsun.com
No longer will dessert lovers have to wait for Sunday dinners or church socials for grandma’s blackberry cobbler. Or her banana pudding. Or her red velvet cake.
In business since late October, the Upper Crust dessert shop and bakery on Jackson Street sells cookies, cakes and pies in single servings or as a whole dessert to go.
The recipes are all made from scratch, including flaky pie crusts, and come from Beaulah Brinker, the 94-year-old grandmother of owner Lana Watkins.
“She’s just a wonderful cook,” Watkins said, “and at potlucks and stuff, people say, ‘Where’s Beaulah’s food? What did Beaulah bring?’”
Watkins and long-time friend Lisa Smith, both of Massac County, had the idea for the shop for nearly two years before the old Papa John’s property came up for sale. Watkins and husband, Joe, bought the shop as an investment and Smith became the daily manager.
With some remodeling, landscaping and painting done by Watkins, a professional painter, the Upper Crust is big on loving people and loving to feed people on the nostalgic taste of homemade dessert.
“That’s what Lisa and I both love,” Watkins said. “We love to make people happy with food, especially older people.”
Both Watkins and Smith said the greatest compliment they receive is when a customer takes a bite of a dessert and they are instantly taken back to a childhood memory.
As part of the shop’s interior design, the cakes, cookies and pies are mixed out in the open and put into an oven close enough for live-audience customers to watch as the goods bake.
“We really like that apsect of it,” Watkins said. “Because a lot people say, ‘Oh, I feel like I’m in your kitchen, not in a shop.’”
Business has flourished mostly by word-of-mouth advertising after customers left Thanksgiving and Christmas tables satisfied with the Upper Crust’s items. Several employees have been hired, including two cake decorators, and Watkins’ four sons even helped with the immense load of orders over the holidays.
“We never dreamed it would be so popular so quick,” Smith said. “People really enjoy themselves and coming in. They come in and talk to us like they’ve known us for a lifetime.”
The building has a drive-up window where customers can drop off their own bakeware for orders and retrieve them later in the day or week. “Things seem to cook better in a glass dish than a tin,” Watkins said.
Specialty coffees are served and the shop is equipped with free wireless Internet service.
“It tickles me because every family,” Smith said, “you have one person who likes cake, one person who likes pies, and kids like cookies, and it’s one place where everyone can get something they like.”
Dusty Luthy can be contacted at 575-8662.