Restaurant touts fund raisers, family

By Rebecca Groff, correspondent

• Name: Kim Cousins and Carol Overbeck, owners, and Dave Behmer, business partner
• Company: Beef O'Brady's
• Address: 5420 Edgewood Road NE, Cedar Rapids
• Phone: (319)294-4992
• Website: www.crbeefs.com
• Elevator pitch: “Family-oriented sports pub with the best wings in town.”

CEDAR RAPIDS - Kim Cousins used to spend her college summers working at her uncle's restaurants in Florida, a franchise called Beef O'Brady's.

“I really liked the food, and the atmosphere was a lot of fun,” she recalled. “I worked three summers in a row, helping him open several sites, and that's when we decided to bring the franchise to Iowa.”

Cousins, a former manager for Penguin's, set out to do just that with her mother, Carol Overbeck, as co-owner, and longtime family friend Dave Behmer on board as business partner.

When Carol Overbeck says “we are all about family in this restaurant,” she means it. Her other daughter Val works at the restaurant as well as her daughter-in-law Laura, along with Laura's sister. Dave's son, Phil, worked in the business as has Kim's brother, Steve.

“We even have two sets of cooks and servers that are brothers and sisters,” Overbeck smiles. “We are family here.”

Beef's, as the owners like to call it, has all the proper markings of that famous and friendly TV bar called Cheers, plus 19 flat screen TVs mounted on the walls. Local high school team pictures and pennants decorate the restaurant's warm-toned wood-and-brick interior.

“Our hope was to make it a kind of neighborhood place where you come in and you always know somebody who's in here,” Behmer explained.

Retired from Rockwell Collins, Behmer handles marketing and advertising for the restaurant and coordinates fund raisers.

“Something Beef's likes to do is get youth organizations in here. We donate a percent of the money spent on food back to them,” he said.

“It's a simple thing for people to do for a fund raiser. All they have to do is promote it, and come in and eat.”

Does having so many family members involved make it difficult in the day-to-day running of the place?

“The upshot is that there is always someone to cover,” Overbeck said. “We are always filling in for one another.

“It's really nice having your family around, not just at home, but at work, too.”

And the downside?

“The downside is that when there is a wedding or a birth in the family, everybody wants off at the same time,” she laughed. “We are fortunate to have wonderful key employees that step up and cover for us when that happens.”

Six of Beef's original employees still work there.

Overbeck noted they, as does every business, have concerns over the economy, “but we are seeing new faces in here every week, and our faithful customers always come in.”

Cousins's appreciated the advice her uncle once gave her: “He said to always make sure you do something that you're passionate about, no matter what type of career you choose.

Just make sure it's something you love doing.”

Own or manage a business you'd like to be considered for “My Biz”? Contact business editor Michael Chevy Castranova at michael.castranova@sourcemedia.net.