CLAYPOOL – Things are changing quickly for Dave and Connie Morgan in the weeks after they opened their sandwich shop and bakery.
They decided not long after opening Red’s Sweets in a former bank building in downtown Claypool June 25 that they want to buy the location, not just lease.
Connie Morgan, whose nickname and recipes inspired the name of the shop, is thinking of quitting her other job and working at Red’s fulltime.
And so many students began attending free breakfasts once school started that the bus stop was moved in front of the restaurant.
“It’s better than we expected,” Dave Morgan said Monday evening after the town council meeting, which he attended both as a resident of four years and a member of the newly revived town park board.
He unlocked the shop that evening for some regulars waiting outside – they have customers they already consider regulars – and gave a brief tour: lunch counter, display case filled with a dozen varieties of chocolate-dipped cake balls, and the massive steel door of the old bank vault.
“That’s where we keep all our recipes locked up,” he joked.
While the regulars enjoyed the last three hot dogs from the cooker, one of the younger town residents who helps in the restaurant stopped in, skateboard in hand.
Cody Bartley, 19, has been with the shop since day one. He cleans up, covers for Dave Morgan if he has to step out, and is getting trained for food service.
“It’s another home away from home. It definitely gives us something to do,” he said. “It’s good for the town. There’s not much in town, just a bar and a post office, so it’s (a) bring everyone together kind of place.”
They decided to open Red’s so Dave Morgan, who previously worked for a Fort Wayne printing company, could spend more time with the family, Connie Morgan said.
Dave had a little food service experience from his teens, but the biggest help setting up was his mother, Roz Morgan, the director of Our Father’s House food pantry in Warsaw.
She also inspired the principle behind Red’s and services the couple provides like student breakfast.
“It ties into the practice that anybody comes in and can eat. I wanted something like that for kids,” Dave Morgan said. “We’re not concerned with cost at this point, we’ll do it whether we make money or not. It goes back to what my mom taught me, that we’re part of this community.”
On the menu weekday mornings from 6 to 9 a.m. are biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. The breakfast is open to any student in the Warsaw Community school system.
They see 15 to 20 high school and middle school students every morning and six to 10 elementary schoolers. Dave Morgan even knocks on doors to wake some of the kids up on his way to the restaurant.
“It’s amazing to see the kids’ attitude, they’re more respectful to people in town,” he said. “They have something to call their own, be a part of it.”
The restaurant is open weekdays from 6-9 a.m., 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday hours are noon to 9 p.m. It’s closed Sundays.
The menu includes sandwiches, salads, coffee, nachos and hot dog. Cake balls are $1.25 each, which Connie Morgan noted people always come back for more of.
“I’m proud of this place. We haven’t had any complaints, only compliments,” she said. “We’re not out to make millions of dollars or anything else, but to provide something for the town at an affordable price. We try to provide a meal for $5 or less. If we can’t, it’s not on the menu.”
