LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
My friend Tom has been in Louisville for a few months now, and he knows his way around pretty well. But he got a little confused when we got together for lunch the other day at Cheddar Box Too.
Tom said his GPS wasn't offering much help, but when he wheeled into the Chenoweth Square shopping center from the east, rolled past Majid's and Paul's and then spotted my car parked right under a sign that read "Cheddar Box," he figured he was there.
Not quite, Tom. But close.
As the patient staff at the original Cheddar Box deli and specialty-food shop, which has been on the site since 1979, have become accustomed to explaining, Cheddar Box Too - its long-awaited sit-down eatery sibling - is right over there on the other side of the parking lot.
Or Tom might have simply followed the crowd.
The original Cheddar Box has earned a well-deserved popularity for the homemade soups, sandwiches and delectable desserts it has provided, boxed and ready to go, over the counter for the past 30 years and more. But if you want to eat at Cheddar Box, your options are pretty much to open the box and dine standing up, or to grab a chair at one of the patio tables sitting out front and rip open your box right there.
Just about one year ago, owner Nancy Tarrant and her crew finally succumbed to what must have been thousands of requests and launched Cheddar Box Too, serving breakfast all day and lunch at midday. (It's open daily from early breakfast through mid-afternoon, but never for dinner.)
They did a beautiful job of renovating the free-standing building that had housed Diggs garden shop for many years (and even further back, if memory serves, the original home of the St. Matthews Paul's market). It's bright and sunny now, done up in yellow and white and lots of windows to let in the light.
I think every seat at every table has pretty much been filled ever since opening day, loaded with happy campers noshing on a somewhat truncated selection of the soups and sandwiches that Cheddar Box made its own.
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/chedd ... ar-box-too
and in LEO Weekly:
http://leoweekly.com/dining/cheddar-box-cheddar-box-too
Cheddar Box Too
109 Chenoweth Lane
Chenoweth Square
896-1133
thecheddarbox.com
Robin Garr's rating: 82 points