My Biz: Club Deli serves up soups, sandwiches

CEDAR RAPIDS - Club Deli, 1933 51st St. NE, owner Chris Dlouhy started cooking as a kid and has never really stopped.

'I've always liked to cook,” he says. 'As kids, my mother told us if we wanted a hot lunch on the weekends, we needed to make it for ourselves because she'd worked all week.”

Dlouhy credits his mother with teaching him how to cook.

'She knew I liked to do it, so I'd cook for my two brothers, my sister and myself.”

He began working at Club Deli when it opened in 1993.

'I just fell in love with the place,” he says. 'This was the only job that I ever had that I actually looked forward to coming into work.”

When an opportunity arose in 2009, he bought the business. He now runs it Monday through Friday with the help of two part-time employees.

Dlouhy prides himself on the fresh, made-from-scratch products he offers.

'Everything we have here we make from scratch, and that includes the dill spread that we use on our sandwiches.”

All soups - except the chicken tortilla soup - and the chili are made by him.

'We even make our own pasta salad and dressings,” he adds. 'We boil the pasta, cut the veggies and make the dressings.”

In keeping with today's healthier trend, their veggie sandwich offering is one of their best sellers. 'Nobody has a veggie sandwich like ours - that I know of,” he smiled.

Dlouhy's workday begins at 6 a.m. when he arrives to cut the vegetables and get soups on to cook. 'We open at 10:30 a.m., and I get everything ready to go before my employees arrive to help for the day.”

The deli draws customers from Rockwell Collins and Transamerica as well as a nearby medical office.

'We see a lot of the patients or their families who come in to buy food and take it back while they wait for their appointments,” he adds.

And then there are his regulars, who Dlouhy said will be there no matter what the weather is outside.

Dlouhy likes to scout out his competition from time to time. 'I try to go to the other places to eat,” he says.

And while he admits he cannot compete with their prices, he believes he offers a higher-quality product than many of the big food chains.

'I pride myself on the quality of meats and cheeses I offer, and that we use fresh vegetables every day.”

During the winter season Club Deli offers baked potatoes with toppings. 'They're one-pound potatoes,” he grinned. Toppings sections include cheese, butter, sour cream, broccoli, chili or taco filling.

To relax on weekends when he's off work, Dlouhy likes to bake homemade bread - from scratch, of course.

'Baking is my stress reliever. I bake all kinds of homemade bread.”