LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
What doesn’t go better on a donut?
As I write this, I am still faintly aquiver with the sensory memory of a childhood pleasure, the s’more — that classic combination of crisp, slightly sweet graham cracker set with a couple squares of Hershey bar, topped with the melty, sugary, caramelized joy of a fire-roasted marshmallow just hot enough to melt the milky chocolate … and then, the pièce de résistance, the crème de la crème, all this goodness squished between halves of a sizzling, seductively greasy grilled donut. Mmmmm, dooooonuts.
I bet you think I’m at the State Fair.
Nope! No longer need one wait for fair season in August to enjoy the calorific deliciousness of everything-on-a-donut. Now you can get a variety of donut treats year-round - and much more, too - thanks to the arrival of Cincinnati’s no-longer-local eatery Tom+Chee.
It’s too soon to call this outfit a “chain.” Better to say it’s moving in the same entrepreneurial direction as, say, Louisville’s Boombozz Pizza or Heine Bros. Coffee: quality and ambition breeding business success but with geographically contained units still not too numerous to count on your fingers.
Cincy food guys Trew Quackenbush and Corey Ward quickly grew their invention into three shops there. Now, with local franchiser Rich Tinsley, the venture here has grown to three in just over a year, and this spring they nabbed $600,000 from ABC’s “Shark Tank” to take it national. Louisville’s initial entry on Bardstown Road seems to be thriving despite its competitive proximity to such landmarks as Sapporo, Uptown Café, the Bristol and the throbbing heartbeat of Restaurant Row.
An outlet near U of L soon followed, likely lured by the typical student’s large appetite and eager acceptance of good cheap eats. Last month, Tom+Chee’s bright Campbell’s Soup red-and-white colors popped up in St. Matthews, sharing parking space with Spinelli’s, to offer peckish adventurers in the inner-suburban club zone a tasty dining alternative to the strip’s remarkable collection of pizzerias.
Offering a broad selection that starts with the simple, nostalgic combo of grilled American on white ($3.50) and classic tomato soup ($2 with a sandwich) and moves on to build-your-own options, plus some 20 sandwich specialties ($4 to $6), Tom+Chee has something for just about everyone.
Read the full reviews on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/tomch ... nut-or-not
And in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/tomchee-doe ... %A6-or-not
Tom+Chee
111 St. Matthews Ave.
893-3575
http://tomandchee.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TomandCheeStMatthews
Robin Garr's rating: 82 points
Other Louisville locations: 1704 Bardstown Road, 409-9494; 319 W. Cardinal Blvd., 749-2299.