Celebrating five years at the top of the hill in West Newton, the Corner Cupboard served up 465 fish sandwiches in one day during last Lent.
This year, owner Debbie Aaron and her family hope to break 500 in a single business day with the help of her loyal customers.
“We do our best to give good, quality to the people who patronize us,” she said.
After taking over the already established store at 110 Mt. Pleasant Road in 2008, Aaron spruced up the interior and added a seating area to transition from a convenience store to a café.
To serve the beer-battered fish — known as the “cod-father” — and other menu items, she enlists the help of friends and family including her husband Bruce and son Kevin.
Her daughter Nikki Ingram and daughter-in-law Amber Organiscak work at the restaurant regularly, with Ingram working the grill and making sandwiches while Organiscak opens the store in the morning, preparing food for the day, including baking the many different types of cake available.
“(Organiscak)'s my left arm and my other daughter's my right arm,” Aaron said. “Without the two of them, I wouldn't be able to do it.”
At Deborah's Hair Design, Aaron also styles hair from her home in Turkeytown, where she and her husband — a maintenance technician for U.S. Steel's Edgar Thompson Works — also breed and raise white-tailed deer.
“It has it's ups and downs, like any family-oriented business, but we hold our own,” Organiscak said.
Aaron said, like the show “Cake Boss,” when interacting with her family sometimes her personality comes across to the customers.
“If you're together as much as we're together, you're going to irritate each other at some point in time, but the next minute we'd kill for each other,” she said.
Chuck Halahan of Sewickley Township, who was checking his lottery tickets Feb. 7, said he likes patronizing the business because it's family-owned.
“They're great people; I've known the owner and her husband for years,” he said.
Aaron said although the building is attached to Hope Veterinary Hospital, the spaces are completely separated and the Corner Cupboard passed its most recent health inspection in January.
She said she uses the best ingredients, including real butter and mayonnaise as well as DeLallo's meats and cheeses for all the sandwiches.
As she and the rest of the family look to the future of the Corner Cupboard, Aaron said she hopes to expand catering services, which has included events at Levin Furniture, Landstar Logistics and Windy Heights Farm, all in South Huntingdon.
Organiscak said she appreciates all the hard work Aaron and the rest of the family have done in the last five years.
“We've come a long way since day one,” she said.
Stacey Federoff is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at sfederoff@tribweb.com or 724-836-6660.
