Rebranded Ky. eatery: ‘You got to pivot’
Challenges of COVID-19 sparked change at CASK
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – I arrive at CASK Southern Kitchen & Bar about 2:30 p.m. on a weekday afternoon. A couple of masked employees greet me, and I let them know that I’m meeting with owner Ashley Sayler.
“Oh, she just pulled up,” one of them remarked, looking out the window. “I’m gonna go help her with the baby.”
The employee returns a few minutes later, baby in hand, with Sayler right behind her. I’ll soon learn that baby Colin is a regular presence there, and the CASK team is accustomed not only to having him around but to keeping an eye on him – and what’s more, they seem to enjoy it.
“It’s super easy to come to work when we have built the dynamic of how positive we want this place to be,” said general manager Chastity Owens. “Restaurants tend to not be that way, (but) that’s not at all how we wanted it to be (here), and I think we have done a fantastic job of keeping it (positive).”
Owens holds Colin while Sayler tells me about how she opened her first restaurant in November 2019 – just four months before pandemic restrictions would force her to close its doors. Clearly, she knows all too well about making tough choices and doing what needs to be done in order to keep a business alive.
“It was called SOU!” she said of the
American soul food restaurant she opened with chef James Moran. “It was a great restaurant – great food, more farm to fork, much more upscale, different price point. And then shortly thereafter, the pandemic hit. Had I known a pandemic was going to hit, I wouldn’t have opened a restaurant. But here we are – you got to pivot.”
Sayler bought out Moran and completely rebranded in an effort to bring down the price point for her customers.
Today, the CASK menu offers a new take on traditional Southern food, featuring everything from fried green tomatoes and deviled eggs to smoked meatloaf and pan-fried pork chops.
“(We created) the whole menu compilation,” Sayler said, “so if you didn’t want to spend a lot of money, you could come in and get a $5 cup of chili; or if you wanted to spend a little bit more, you could walk out the door with ribeye. That way it was more, ‘come as you are,’ and you know, you don’t have to expect to spend a lot.”
Modifying the menu, revamping the interior and creating new outside seating aren’t the only things Sayler did to boost business amid the pandemic.
“We have done it all,” she said. “We put tents in the parking lot; we’ve created our own events.” She also participated in Louisville Burger Week, an annual affair that occurred just a couple of weeks after CASK opened.
CASK is closed on Mondays, but on
Tuesday of Burger Week, the phone began ringing nonstop.
“I should have done a little bit more research,” Sayler said, laughing. “We wrote a rail of tickets; literally had to take the phone off the hook. We had no idea what we were getting into, which was a great, terrible problem.”
At the time, CASK only served dinner – and by the time the doors opened at 5 p.m., there was a line wrapped around the building. Despite the unexpected overwhelming response, Sayler knew they had to make it work.
“You only get one try to win consumers over, and they don’t care if you’re new or not,” she said.
“But it taught us a lot in a short period of time,” added Owens, who has been Sayler’s right-hand woman through it all. She was on the receiving end of latenight text messages during the really rough periods, when Sayler was awake at all hours, trying to come up with new ideas to keep CASK going.
“I have an infant here, and I have a staff that depends on me to feed their families (and) pay their rent,” said Sayler, who will be adding two more people to her own family soon – she is expecting twin girls in a few months. “I don’t take those things lightly. So, you know, I’m worried about everything . ... If we went under, we would lose our home.”
The good news, she added, is that she has always been competitive and doesn’t back down from a challenge.
“Your hustle game doesn’t just get to stop – ever – even if you’re successful,” she said.