By: Ryan Duey
Photo Courtesy of Ryan Duey
Ginger Walker, Owner of Ginger’s Uptown, was the guest presenter at the Clay Center Lions Club meeting on July 1st. Ginger’s Uptown is just starting its 40th year in business.
Walker spoke about the recent changes that have been added to the store. She said she works under a five-year plan, adding or deleting things, thinking of new ideas to add foot traffic to the store. The recent addition was a significant one: the Uptown Kitchen.
“We wanted to make a place people like. A place to come, talk, and enjoy. We like to entertain, we love to serve food, and it just was a natural fit.”
“So, I started writing up ideas, and I’m writing them down and just getting excited. Then two years ago, we said, let’s go, we’re going to do it. So, we started The Uptown Kitchen.”
The Kitchen and Coffee Bar don’t just add a place for people to relax and enjoy a meal or drink. The food is made using some ingredients from the store’s gourmet food section, and the coffee used is sold in the store.
Walker said adding the Kitchen was quite a process, from adding a commercial kitchen and serving area, seating, licensing, and more. She said different recipes were tested weekly.
“It was natural for us to do it because of our gourmet food department, and we wanted something that would enhance that and would help that to grow.”
“One of the girls did recipes, and she did tests every Thursday for two years, if you can imagine. Afterwards, we had the whole book of recipes.”
“We knew what we were going to do. We have lists of things we’re going to serve together, what we’re going to use from our condiments, and everything that we have in our store.” The Uptown Kitchen offers a food menu once a week, coffee, wine, and more. Visit the store’s Facebook page to view the weekly menu.
