Cuda Café’s Beth Mueller: She used to get her inspiration from Mister Rogers, but now, she’s inspired by the customers who adore her café’s home-cooked food

By Vesna Vuynovich Kovach

After 16 years at home raising five children, 43-year-old Watertown native Beth Mueller took on out-of-the-house work in a big way. Last October she plunged into the job of “manager and chief cook and bottle washer” (her words) at Cuda Café, an earthy haven for home cooking and live acoustic music off Deerfield’s Main Street and just a few feet from the scenic, easy-pedaling bike route that is the Glacial Drumlin State Trail.

Mueller’s husband, Randy, along with two partners, were finishing up a year-and-a-half renovation of a tobacco warehouse once used for storing local crops to load onto passing trains. Rechristened “The T’Baccey Barn,” it’s home to tenants including e-Cove Market, featuring antiques and works by local artists, and a recording studio.

Mueller was drawn to the historic structure with its exposed woodwork and old farmland charm. “When Randy was working on the building and I would come in to say ‘Hi,’ the building had a great feel to it even then,” she recalls. “It’s not something I can actually put into words. It just felt comfortable. Then, when they came up with the café idea, I volunteered to take on the managing of it. I thought it was a great idea!”

Vesna Vuynovich Kovach: Tell me about your culinary point of view.
Beth Mueller: I choose fresh ingredients over pre-packaged items, and we try as much as possible to make things ourselves. We try to promote Wisconsin with our milk, meats, cheeses and homemade wieners from Kraemer’s Dairy and Glenn’s Meat Market in Watertown, Wis., microbrewery beers and wines, Ancora Coffee, Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream, and Wisconsin musicians.

My hope is that I’ve created a place where, when people walk in, they feel welcome and are able to relax for a little while. I’ve created a menu of healthy foods in satisfying serving sizes. Ninety percent of the food we serve we’ve made ourselves. So we know what’s in it and that it’s as fresh and wholesome as we can make it.

VVK: What are some of your favorite dishes?
BM: The Cuda Cheese Steak is very popular: Sourdough bread with mayo, sautéed onion, mozzarella cheese and top-round roast beef, all grilled. Heather DeHart, my food angel, created our grilled Turkey Cilantro Wrap, with a cilantro-mayo spread that we make, muenster cheese, oven-baked turkey breast, and sautéed onions, red peppers and green peppers. Then there’s Garden Meets Grill, focaccia bread with provolone cheese. We sauté zucchini, mushrooms, red peppers and onions in olive oil. Then we put on our orange soy sauce spread and grill the whole thing!

VVK: What’s your background in cuisine?
BM: I first fell in love with dough watching Chef Brockett on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” I also had a wonderful grandma who was very patient with me and taught me how to make sweet rolls, and a babysitter who made homemade bread and gave me dough to play with so I could make my own little loaves. I waitressed for about 15 years off and on. I was the lunch director at my children’s elementary school for four years and fed 100 kids lunch every day. That was really fun!

VVK: What’s your favorite type of cooking?
BM: My favorite thing is baking! I make all of my cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, ginger crinkles and Cuda Chip — oatmeal, chocolate chip and sweet ground chocolate. I also make the muffins, coffee cake, apple pie, fudge brownies, dessert bars and biscotti. I get my breads from a supplier in Madison called Elegant Foods that I really love. They have marble rye, sourdough and eight-grain, which are organic, and grill so nicely. I also get my croissants, cinnamon rolls, pastries, and Door County Cherry Pie and Key Lime Pie from them.

VVK: What does “Cuda Café” mean?
BM: It’s short for “barracuda.” We have a barracuda mounted over the downstairs bar. He (or she) is biting our first dollar of profit! The fish was actually caught by [partner] Dalton Schreiber’s mom. Go, Mom! Bob Griggas [the third partner] also owns a red Barracuda car.

I find it humorous that we’re named after a fish but don’t feature a fish fry on our menu. And that the building was originally a tobacco warehouse for loading tobacco on the railroad but that we’re a non-smoking establishment.

VVK: How do music and food interact at Cuda?
BM: On Friday and Saturday evenings you get all of your senses stimulated: taste and smell, sight and hearing. Add to that the company of others and the atmosphere of the building itself and it makes for a great experience. We maintain a wide variety of music: original singer-songwriters, blues, jazz, bluegrass, rock, alternative country.

Old Dogs New Tricks is a band with roots in the Deerfield area. The dance floor is packed when they play. The Twang Dragons’ alternative country rock gets the dance floor humming, too. The Gomers have a songbook of over 2,000 songs, and you can be the singing star with them. It’s loads of fun. We’ve also had [jazz guitarists] Kirk Tatnall and Jack Grassal, who are amazing musicians.

VVK: What do you like most about running the café?
BM: Making an apple pie from scratch, serving a warm piece to a customer and seeing how much he or she enjoys it. Moments like that. Success to me is a café full of contented customers, not the profit margin at the end of the day. This probably sounds idealistic and I know it drives my husband and the other two owners crazy — but that’s me! #

Cuda Café is located at 12 S. Industrial Park Road in Deerfield. Call or check www.cuda-cafe.com for music listings.