KEN CATLIN, co-owner of Beachwood Eatery, 608 East Third Street, stands outside the window of his new downtown food cart. He believes he has found a niche offering quality food, at reasonable prices, for the downtown community.
KEN CATLIN, co-owner of Beachwood Eatery, 608 East Third Street, stands outside the window of his new downtown food cart. He believes he has found a niche offering quality food, at reasonable prices, for the downtown community.
“Everyone was asking me to do this,” smiles Ken Catlin, co-owner of Beachwood Eatery, a food cart located downtown The Dalles. He opened Saturday, and was pleased with the community response. “Saturday was huge.”
Why name his small food cart, “Beachwood?” “Everyone asks that,” said Catlin, who owns the cart with his wife Nancy Catlin. “We go to the beach a lot, love hunting and the woods. We go camping as much as possible. So we combined the two — the beach and the woods.”
Ken Catlin has been a chef for over 20 years, most recently as the food service director for Flagstone Senior Living in The Dalles, where he worked for five years. He also worked as a chef at a Portland restaurant called “High Rocks Steakhouse” for about four years.
Prior to that, he was co-owner of an out-of-state restaurant for 10 years before returning to The Dalles, where he was born and raised, to be closer to family.
He is a 1983 graduate of The Dalles High School.
Catlin is thinking to one day open a downtown restaurant, but already the food cart is proving to be a good investment, with plenty of hungry people finding their way to his location at 608 East Third Street.
Business has been so good, he has already had to drop his breakfast menu.
“I was going to try breakfast, but lunch and dinner are a really big hit,” he explained.
“There just wasn’t time to prepare everything.”
Catlin sited his cart to serve the downtown community with good food at reasonable prices.
He is serving hamburgers, hot dogs, Cuban sandwiches, salads and more.
What is a Cuban sandwich? Catlin grills marinated pork and ham, then grills a French roll. Swiss cheese and a mayonnaise sauce is added, along with mustard and pickles. The whole sandwich is then put in a press and grilled.
His hamburgers are made from scratch, and have such intriguing names as “The Pioneer,” “The Hog,” “The Beachwood” and “My 3 Sons.”
My 3 Sons? Named after his boys, this one has three 1/3 pound patties, bacon, a fried egg, lettuce and Beachwood barbeque sauce.
Catlin isn’t shy about promoting his food, either.
“We have the best hotdogs you’ll ever eat in your life. We make our own barbeque sauce, it’s an awesome recipe. And the bacon relish on the ‘Beachwood Dog’ is the best you’ll ever have,” said Catlin.
Beachood Eatery can be found online at beachwoodeatery.com and on Facebook, where days and hours of operation are posted — hours are currently 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.
Meal prices range from $4 for half a deli sandwich to $9 for “The Duke.”
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