Dec. 12, 2019

The cafe in the Avera McKennan Fitness Center has a new owner, a new name and a few new menu items.

Andrew Brown, who worked at the cafe for 12 years, has taken over. He renamed it the CNC Food Factory, which is a play on the name of the C+C Music Factory. The ’90s-era group’s song “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” is played frequently in the fitness center at 41st Street and Southeastern Avenue, Brown said. It also stands for “cafe and catering.”

The cafe is open to the public. It serves breakfast, including pancakes, eggs, omelets, bacon, sausage and baked goods. The rest of the day there are sandwiches, wraps, quesadillas, pizzas, soups and salads.

Brown said his baked doughnuts are the most popular addition to the menu. One day this week, he had almost a dozen flavors in the case, including caramel chocolate pretzel and Breaking Bad Lemon Blueberry, a lemon iced doughnut with blue chunks of hard candy.

“We’re here at 2 in the morning making doughnuts,” said Brown, who gets help from his wife,  Stephanie. She’s there until 4:30 a.m., and then Brown runs the cafe by himself from 5 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

Baked chicken nuggets are his second-biggest hit. They’re dipped in buttermilk and flour, parbaked, chilled and then baked to order. Sauce choices include teriyaki, buffalo and barbecue and they come with a ranch or bleu cheese dip.

“They taste better (than wings), and you get more for your money.”

He also added pizzas made on naan, with options such as veggie, taco, chicken alfredo and traditional pepperoni and sausage.

Brown is continuing to operate a catering service out of the kitchen that tackles serving from a half-dozen to 200 people.

“Our catering menu has a wide range from breakfast, lunch or dinner. We grind our coffee fresh every day. We can do fresh fruit, baked goods, a taco bar. Today with did pork loin with cheesy hash browns and a salad.”

Most of the catering jobs are served buffet style, but CNC Food Factory also does box lunches.

“We’ve kicked a lot of food out of this kitchen.”

See the cafe and catering menus at CNCFoodFactory.org.