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Ice House Cafe to warm up to University Avenue
venture
By JIMMY SETTLE
The Leaf-Chronicle
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Greg Williamson/The
Leaf-Chronicle Greg Williamson
Ice House Cafe owner
Duncan Morrow shows off a "Kitchen Sink" super sub available at
his new restaurant at 118 University Ave. The Ice House Cafe is in an
area targeted for future development that is hoped
to enhance the ties between Austin Peay State University and historic downtown.
FOR MORE
· To find out more about the Ice House
Cafe and Village Recording, visit the Web site at http://www.icehousecafe.net/
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Slowly,
but surely, Duncan Morrow's dreams for University Avenue are coming alive.
Morrow is boosting
broader plans to tie the Austin Peay State University campus to historic downtown
with his own Ice House Cafe and Village Recording Studios, located at 118
University Ave., near Cafe 541 and the nearly completed, 7,800-square-foot
University and Main retail strip center.
His new venture is
housed in an extensively remodeled version of what was once the Montgomery
County Ice and Coal Co., built in the mid-1940s.
"I bought this
place in 1997," Morrow said. "At that time, this part of town was
in a pretty bad state of disrepair."
Village Recording
represented phase one of Morrow's efforts. Not fully knowing what he was
getting into, Morrow — who has worked in radio and studio recording with
local bands mostly as a hobby — saw his plans sidelined by the pivotal
tornado of January 1999.
"I was here during
the tornado. I knew real fear for the first time that morning (Jan.
22)," Morrow said. "The tornado went right over this building. It
beat the heck out of our roof, and it set the recording studio back about
18 months.
"But in a way, the
tornado did a lot of good, when you see the way downtown is coming back to
life even better than before. I'm really looking forward to the plans for
University Avenue and the new residential opportunities in this area,"
he said.
As the full-fledged
recording studio took shape in 1998 in an area of the old building that had
once served as a large freezer, Morrow said he found himself out of work,
and decided to pursue another idea for the remainder of the structure.
"We had the whole,
other side of the building, and my inspiration for it was the Ice House
Cafe, focusing on great sandwiches made with great breads," he said.
Now open, the Ice House
Cafe seats about 50 people and features a menu of sandwiches ranging from Reubens, to Italians, to the "Kitchen Sink"
made with a half-pound of meat. All of the sandwiches are made with locally-baked Silke's Old World Breads.
But the food is not all there is to
the Ice House. From poetry, to music, to spoken word performances, the cafe
is a throwback of sorts to the old coffee house concept promoting
intellectual pursuits and the free expression of ideas.
"We want to cater
to the college crowd, as well as the downtown businessperson, so we have
computers available for people to conduct class work and business, or they
can play our Xbox. On Saturday nights, we're
having open mic night where people who like to sing or perform can enjoy
their 15 minutes of fame. Basically, we're just
striving for a nice, simple and comfortable place where people can just
hang out. "Over time, we'll be adding espresso coffees and we'll
eventually be staying open 24 hours a day," he said.
Jimmy
Settle is business editor and can be reached at 245-0742, or jimmysettle@theleafchronicle.com.
Originally published
December 16, 2004
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