Restaurant and market opening in former Yogurt Shoppe space

A country-cooking restaurant called Dixie Kwik Cafe & Market plans to open Thursday in space formerly occupied The Yogurt Shoppe Cafe, which closed its doors in November.

Dixie Kwik, which will have carryout service, will also sell bulk food items such as egg salad and baked beans that customers can take home to eat if they wish rather than dine at the restaurant on Woodruff Road in St. Francis Marketplace, said Ted Duboise, a restaurant veteran who is launching the eatery and market.

“We’re going to be serving country cooking,” Duboise said. “Actually, it’s cafeteria style. The difference is each of the meats will be priced individually. For instance, I’m going to do a beef brisket. Well, I can’t sell a brisket for what I can sell chicken for.”

Duboise said he has been planning the restaurant since December, shortly after The Yogurt Shoppe — which had been open nearly three decades — closed the week of Thanksgiving at 4611 Woodruff Road. He purchased the equipment from the owners and then went to work getting ready for Thursday’s big moment. The cafe will open at 7 a.m. for breakfast, moving into the lunch hour before closing at 3 p.m. Those are the hours Monday through Saturday.

“I’ll be rotating meats and veggies each day,” Duboise said. “Each day of the week will be a little something different, maybe repeating with baked chicken or meat loaf twice a week and things like that.”

The breakfast menu will include traditional eggs, sausage gravy and biscuits, bacon, ham and home fries. There also will be waffles, chocolate gravy biscuits and what is called a “Dixie Doodle,” which is pit-smoked ham, scrambled eggs, Swiss and American cheese on a soft slider roll.

The lunch menu will include pork chops and pork tenderloin, meatloaf, baked chicken, salmon, Salisbury steak, Cajun shrimp, roast turkey, beef pot roast, beef brisket, baked ham and baby back ribs. Six to eight side vegetables will be available each day, including the typical mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green beans, potato salad, black-eyed peas and squash.

Other offerings include salads, sandwiches, chili, Brunswick stew, loaded potato soup and sweet items such as coconut bars.

“I’m going to sell a trout,” Duboise said. “A lot of places here sell a tilapia or catfish, and that’s OK, but I wanted to have something a little different. So I’m going to do a trout instead of the tilapia, and I’m going to do Alaska-caught salmon. Those things aren’t cheap, so that’s why I can’t just say I’m a meat and three ... It will be priced individually, depending on what meat they choose.”

Duboise said he has been in the food and restaurant industry for 35 years. That includes 10 years as a general manager at Cracker Barrel, eight years as a managing partner at Ruby Tuesday, and running an Italian eatery for three years. Aside from being an owner, he joked that he will be the cook and chief bottle washer, “the whole works.”

“I’ve had a lot of experience in it, so that’s why I’m willing to tackle it,” he said, laughing.

Duboise and his wife, Pam, a silent partner in the restaurant venture, wrote and released in 2014 a recipe book titled, “Supper Time in Dixie.” It, naturally, includes plenty of traditional Southern cooking dishes and desserts. The couple also own the online site, On Point! Columbus.

This story was originally published May 24, 2017 at 5:16 PM with the headline "Restaurant and market opening in former Yogurt Shoppe space."