Duffer’s celebrates 20 years in business
Last week, Donetta Singletary was busy planning a party for about 500 guests. It was an anniversary party of one of her three businesses, Duffer’s Cafe. It took place on Sunday, June 12.
In a region where restaurants come and go, Duffer’s has been serving breakfast and lunch for 20 years. And Singletary has no doubt why they have endured: consistency. The quality of both food and service has to be consistent, she said.
She has been in the restaurant business for 40 years and once managed the Yacht Club restaurant for the POA.
“That’s a tough building,” she said about the old Yacht Club because of the logistical challenges in the layout. The POA is renovating the building, which is now named Lakepoint Restaurant and Event Center.
She and her husband, Mike Singletary, a POA golf pro, opened Duffer’s in Town Center in 1996. When Village Center was under construction on Lancashire Boulevard, she agreed to move the business into a new building and helped design the inside.
All the restaurants in Bella Vista struggle with staffing, she said. There just aren’t enough people in the area willing to work hard for a food handler’s wage. One advantage she can offer her staff is the hours they work. Because the restaurant isn’t open for dinner, every one can have every evening off. The restaurant is closed on Sundays, so her staff has family time then as well. Singletary also offers them a regular wage so they don’t depend on tips. When the servers get tips, they pool them with the entire staff and everyone understands it’s a bonus — not part of their wages.
Another perk of working at Duffer’s is that Singletary is willing to work around vacations and employee obligations when possible.
Many of her employees have been with her a long time, including 75-year-old Ruby Brown, who has been behind the register for 19 years. Her staff knows regular customers well and notice when someone doesn’t come in, she said.
But not everyone has stayed.
“I trained a lot who have moved on to bigger and better things,” she said. In fact, one of her former employees is now managing the restaurant at Crystal Bridges.
The first thing she teaches her staff is: “Full hands in and full hands out.” If you’re leaving the kitchen bring something out and pick up some dirty plates on your way back in. No one wants to sit in front of a dirty plate, she said.
Three years ago, a group from the Golf Channel visited Duffers along with dozens of restaurants along the PGA Tour. When they rated the restaurants, Duffer’s came in third. The judges liked the golf decor, the service and “the perfect amount of grease in every plateful of food,” according to a 2014 press release.
“It’s all logistics,” she said. “Cooking isn’t hard, it’s all in the timing.”
To celebrate 20 years, Singletary cooked hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill in the shopping center parking lot. She planned it for a June 12, a Sunday, so the other businesses won’t be inconvenienced and her staff is free to come and enjoy themselves. She had no doubt it would be a fun time because they did the same thing 10 years ago and it was a success.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” she quoted, looking up from the microwave she was cleaning as she talked. “We found our niche.”