Customer Care at the Cottage Inn

“Yes, she’s here. She’s fine,” the gentleman said on the phone.

I exhaled a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I hope she hasn’t caused you any trouble.”

“No, no. It’s fine. We love your mom. She’s great,” he reassured me. “She ordered some cake, and now she’s drinking some coffee. Everything’s okay.”

“I’m coming to get her now,” I said. “I’m sorry for any inconvenience she might have caused you. Do we owe you anything?”

“No. Everything’s good. You’re fine,” he said again. Using the word “fine” was a code word for me that told me that the imposition my mother had created was understood, considering her condition.

Her condition would be eventually diagnosed as “neurocognitive disorder” with a secondary diagnosis of “dementia.” But these episodes of mom going MIA were happening before I started having these conversations with the restaurant proprietor who lived around the corner from mom’s home.

The Cottage Inn Restaurant, located on the corner of Eastern Parkway and Bradley Avenue in the Parkview Village neighborhood, is a “dark horse” in the Louisville, Kentucky restaurant race. Its website says that it’s been serving the Louisville area since 1929 - a few years shy of century - and it’s known for its “homestyle Southern cooking.” The restaurant is one of several mom-and-pop places nestled one of the several residential neighborhoods within the city limits, but one of the things that makes it stand out is its longevity. The pandemic of 2020 was just too much for a lot of restaurateurs and caused them to shut their doors permanently, but I was happy to learn, when I finally did venture outside of my apartment after several months, that the Cottage Inn was still in business. And my joy is only partially because of their food.

Now, please allow me to detour for a bit. Especially because I live in one of the newest “Food Destination Cities” in America. I want to share a little bit about my city. Specifically, about the food scene here in Louisville. We have good food here, and plenty of great restaurants. And I’m not talking about the chains or franchises, but the local establishments that originated here, that are distinctly Louisville.

I’m an Uber driver. It’s not my primary occupation, but I’m grateful that I was able to drive during the pandemic to create income for myself. Anyway, when visitors to Louisville ask me about good places to eat, I usually say, “Throw a stick! And wherever it lands...” And I mean that. If out-of-towners ask what parts of town have great food, I’ll immediately mention 4th Street Live, NuLu and the Highlands, but they can travel further out toward the East End if they care to. I’d like to think that, since we are an international city, they can find any and every ethnic cuisine to tantalize their palate. Our city has food and restaurant representation from just about every continent on the planet - cuisines from Argentina, Ireland, Vietnam and the Congo. You can enjoy a meal of poutine from Canada, or kangaroo from the “land down-under.” And since Louisvillians are diverse as far as their eating habits go, foodies can find a restaurant anywhere in the city that will accommodate specific nutritional restrictions or requirements: gluten-free, keto, paleo, vegetarian, vegan. I’m an omnivore, but I’ve had some of the best meals at vegan and vegetarian restaurants. And I’m a return customer.

(Oh. There is one exception to my bragging on the food in the Louisville. I have no problem telling folk to NOT visit one particular restaurant here, not because the food is so bad, but because every person who has told me they ate there said, “MEEEHHH, it was alright, but I don’t think I’ll go back.” I mean, who wants their brand to have mediocre reviews? Right now, I won’t name the famous celebrity chef whose restaurant has that reputation; I may save that for another story.)

Now allow me to make a return trip to the subject of some of the homier spots here in this “little-big town.” Many visitors to Louisville aren’t looking to eat exotic cuisine, but to enjoy good, old-fashioned comfort food. Louisville is a Southern city, and we also support some of the best Southern/Homestyle/Soul Food cuisine in the region. Most of the Soul Food joints you’ll find in the Louisville’s West End, the Southwestern and South-Central parts of the city. But if you want to find some good Homestyle Country cooking, you might need to venture into one of many Louisville residential neighborhoods, like I mentioned before. (You can find a branded recipe at a Cracker Barrel sitting near any interstate exit, but as I said, I’m not talking about restaurant chains.)

The food is not the only thing I especially like about local “mom-and-pop" establishments. There’s something to be said about service, too, and, if you ask me, great service may as well be on the “endangered species list.” Yes, you can find good service at any restaurant. You can find some places that go above and beyond to cater to their patrons. Why, that kind of service can be found at some chain restaurants (one restaurant chain comes to mind, which I won’t name here, that has a patented system of “above and beyond” service - and that chain is selling it to other companies.) In my opinion, the managements and servers of Louisville’s local establishments make it a point to really take care of their customers.

And some of the best Homestyle cooking, as well as some of the best service, can be found at the Cottage Inn Restaurant. The couple who are the proprietors of the restaurant didn’t start the place, but they took it over from the previous owners. The couple, who are originally from Bosnia, used to have a restaurant downtown, located right down the street from the church where I grew up at. They eventually moved out to this new location, which happened to be around the corner from where my mother lived at the time. Before my mother’s mental condition really began to go downhill, she would occasionally stop over there to get dinner, and she would frequently bring her leftovers back home. (Now, I wound up moving in with my mother – and my uncle, who lived there too – for a couple of years.) She’d sometimes offer me her uneaten portions from the white Styrofoam containers she brought in – meatloaf, fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, salmon croquettes. She was really partial to those salmon croquettes! Anyway, she offered to buy me dinner one evening, so we took the short walk over to the stone building on the corner, surrounded by trees and plants.

The interior décor is simple: wood paneling and painted walls and trim, sporting muted shades of brown and tan. There is a mixture of both wood and metal tables and chairs, clean and well-cared for. The counter resembles a bar, the structure is heavy wood, and instead of TVs hanging behind the counter, broadcasting sporting events, there are wooden shelves, displaying various odds-and-ends including books, pottery ware and various ceramic tchokches, several in the form of hens and roosters. Last I checked, there was no available wi-fi, but that day’s freshly-baked cakes and pies, each on dessert stands under transparent covers, were displayed on the counter for customer inspection - and after-dinner temptation.

One of the servers eventually made her way to our table just a few minutes after we were seated. The menu offered the simple, homestyle fare like mom had frequently brought home, also offering sandwiches, burgers, entrée salads, and additional fare like meatloaf, beef and chicken livers, and country-fried steak. I think that day, mom ordered the Chicken & Dumplings, while I ordered the All-You-Can-Eat Fried Chicken (at the time, offered only on Wednesdays). We enjoyed our entrees and two side dishes apiece, and then afterward we ordered coffee, as we’d gotten into the habit of doing whenever we went out to eat. We took in the view of the traffic and street outside of the window, and our server occasionally returned to us to see if we needed any additional service, or any containers for our leftovers. She was also kind enough to humor mom’s repeated personal questions about her and her family, though they were the same questions that she just asked the last time the server visited our table.

When we went up to pay our bill, the proprietress herself was behind the counter/bar. I recognized her, and she eventually remembered me as one of the patrons that frequented the restaurant downtown. I introduced my mother, and she indicated that she knew my mom, since she was a frequent customer. We chatted a bit, and mom excused herself to go to the Ladies’ Room. No sooner was she headed that way, it seemed that my mom would speak to the other patrons as she passed by their tables, striking up conversations and forget that she was heading to the restroom. When I gently reminded her of her need to relieve herself, she would make a face at me and stick out her tongue. I must have been blushing a bit, as I was a little embarrassed by the way the dementia was affecting my mother’s behavior, especially in public. I confided to the restaurant owner about my mom’s condition.

Handing me a plastic bag for our takeout containers, she replied, “Oh, don’t worry about her. I understand. She’s one of our regular customers. We love her. Whenever she comes in, we’ll take care of her.”

I nodded, unable to immediately speak, but blinking back the sting of tears. I finally said, “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

I didn’t know how much I’d need their care later on, after mom and my uncle would be evicted from their place around the corner, when mom would move into my apartment several miles away. Driving eventually became too difficult for her, not only because her car stopped working and she wouldn’t get it repaired, but because she would get lost and couldn't find her way back to my apartment. However, there was nothing wrong with her mobility, and she would walk and wander the streets of Louisville all day long, until she would get tired and either take a bus back to where we lived, or she called me to pick her up from wherever she found herself at the time. She would frequently return to the more familiar places her memory would bring to her, like her old neighborhood, like the Cottage Inn Restaurant. So as time went by, and my mother’s treks would take her later into the evening, she would occasionally stop in the restaurant, where she would sit until near closing. One of the first times she went MIA, and didn’t think to call me from her cell phone, I’m not sure why I thought to get them on the phone, but it was reassuring to know that I could sometimes find her there, and they would watch her until I could get there to pick her up.

They never made me feel as if my mother and her condition were any sort of imposition or inconvenience. They just treated her like a family member. The Cottage Inn Restaurant has good food (the BEST fried chicken in the city, if you ask me). And they have great service. But the thing that makes them special, I think, is that they have the kind of people working there who are actually...KIND. That’s why I’ll continue to be a repeat (albeit infrequent) customer.