10th year in a row awarded Best Caterer for Small Weddings, Chowgirls Killer Catering has had a whirlwind year. Margo Ashmore interviews Heidi Andermack and Amy Brown about their new building, cookbook, and what’s up with the Hollywood Theater.
Trucks full of building materials rumble by. The jet black pristinely striped parking lot fills with staff vehicles and vans that were acquired in taking over a business. Inside, there’s a wealth of square footage two, four, and six times the spaces previously allocated to the crucial functions.
Chowgirls Killer Catering moved to 336 Hoover St. NE in March this year, and now after making the rest of their improvements, they plan an event for friends, families, suppliers and clients toward the end of this month. Co-owners Heidi Andermack and Amy Brown gave me a tour and update on their many escapades since we announced what ended up to be a false start.
“By the time we had figured out the space” at the Food Building, “it was clear we had already outgrown it,” said Andermack. The space on Hoover involved purchasing the assets of Joseph’s Catering (July of 2016) and partnering with Solar Arts Building owner Duane Ahrens on renovating Joseph’s former building. They’re renting from Ahrens with option to buy.
For those wondering what’s happening with the Hollywood Theater (it was announced in other media that they would operate the Hollywood as an event center), Brown and Andermack say they are working on ideas and potential partners/investors to make it happen, but also need to focus on stabilizing in their current space.
Andrew Volna confirmed he’s continuing to try to work with Chowgirls but would be open to other proposals if they come along.
Becoming a recommended caterer or in many cases, the exclusive caterer, for venues around town has propelled the business toward both that stability and the need for the Hoover Street kitchen. They run Solar Arts by Chowgirls, the event space on the 3rd Floor of 711 NE 15th Ave.
Did they ever think they’d end up this big, or this soon? Each, asked individually, laughed “no.” Pointing to a photo from 2007 when they won a Best of Minnesota Monthly award, Andermack said, “we thought that was big then,” their rented space in Dinkytown. From there, they went to building kitchen space next to the Frank Stone Gallery, then taking over the gallery and eventually the original smaller gallery space next door on Second Street at 13th Avenue. Another caterer now rents that space.
Brown and Andermack commented that they’re getting used to their new surroundings. Staff who used to walk a couple of blocks to work in the old neighborhood are biking or driving. “The Northeast community continues to be part of our legacy.”
An aside, not only did they get several vans in the purchase, they got a hot dog cart and an ice cream cart, to which they added a cotton candy machine and a popcorn machine. “We plan to offer unique flavors,” Andermack said, “and we can rent them to other caterers.”
And for 10 years running they’ve been named the best caterer for small weddings by Minnesota Bride magazine.
Another dream, to write a cookbook, came true this last year and sent them on a national tour with about as many stops as they made locally. Brown explained that for the first couple of years as a Chowgirl, she maintained her role at Random House in sales and marketing.
It was a contact from there who formed his own rep agency and landed them a couple of offers for “Chowgirls Killer Party Food: Righteous Bites and Cocktails for Any Occasion.” The tour “was the kind of tour a big publisher would send you on,“ Brown said. They were paid an advance and will get royalties.
They’re not concerned that folks will just make their recipes and not need them to cater. “They’d find it’s hard to have a catering company,” Andermack said.
“I’m still trying to figure out why they want to work that hard,” Brown added, about their employees. “The loyalty and dedication we see in the people who work here, is amazing.” They still have their first cook, Mari Cedar James, who dropped out of culinary school to get real-world experience and now, having done all the jobs, is their Chief Experience Officer.
The Chowgirls story is rich with connections – they were introduced 14 years ago by Amy’s brother Nathan who admired Heidi’s husband Chank’s font designs and arranged to host the Andermacks as they were checking out Paducah, Kentucky.
Debbie Woodward at the Northrup King Building hired them for their first gig, a Minnesota Monthly reception for young architects, where they met Wynne Yelland who did the architecture for 336 Hoover.
They announced their new business in an event at Frank Stone Gallery two years before locating their kitchen there. Even Volna was a connection loosely made partly several years ago when Noiseland and The Chank Company were in the same building.
Recently, the partners were featured in a video shoot for Walgreen’s recognizing female entrepreneurs. It left them with time to reminisce about how their various business events were benchmarked by the births of Brown’s three daughters (“future Chowgirls all,” Brown chimed in) and Andermack’s son Max “he’ll be bar manager.”
During the shoot, they got both families together in the new space for a meal, and said it was special sharing those stories with the kids.
Below: A shot of the new Chowgirls space and Heidi Andermack, touring the kitchen (Photos by Margo Ashmore), and Amy Brown (courtesy of Chowgirls).