Article Contributed on: 2/17/2009 1:32:47 PM
On the fair-weathered morning of Feb. 12,
Suzanne Smith, 61, is hard at work making scones inside her catering kitchen hidden away behind Big Lots at Wadsworth Boulevard and 42nd Avenue.
The owner of Food for Thought Catering, 4238 Wadsworth Blvd., Wheat Ridge, is making "tea food" for guests who will be touring the Byers-Evans House Museum, 1310 Bannock St., Denver, and the Grant-Humphreys Mansion, 770 Pennsylvania St., Denver, on Feb. 13.
Smith said she never liked scones as a child -- she thought they were unappetizing balls of dough.
"Mine are an improvement," she says with a smile. "Not in the calorie department, but in the taste department."
Smith, a Wheat Ridge native, has run Food for Thought since 1982. July 2, 1982, to be exact. She said it all started shortly after her youngest daughter,
Maggie, started kindergarten at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic School, 3920 Pierce St. Smith hit it off with another parent,
Nancy Cribari, and since the school did not have a lunch program at the time, the duo decided to make lunches for the 435 students.
"We had 45 minutes," Smith recalls. "We thought, 'We can do that.'"
Smith and Cribari were co-owners of Food for Thought for a few years, until the two parted ways as business owners.
"Nancy came up with the name -- I give her credit for that," Smith said. "And we're still friends, which is amazing."
Smith said she never planned to become a caterer, but her love for making lunches for school kids, and cooking in general, paved the way for her business.
"I always liked to cook," Smith said. "I cooked at home when I was little. It's not like I set out to be a caterer -- I didn't even know what a caterer was."
She said she looks at running Food for Thought as an orchestra: "I'm the conductor. I'm the everything here."
And her musical metaphor is appropriate: When she finds time (she said she works an average of 60 to 70 hours a week), Smith enjoys playing piano. She has a music degree from the St. Louis Institute of Music and has been a piano teacher since 1968, though she hasn't had any time for students these past few years.
"There's a limit to what you can do in 24 hours," she said. "I feel really guilty when I walk by (the piano) and don't play."
But she said she resolved this New Year's to find the time to play more often.
While she employs about five part-time workers -- most of whom are friends and have worked here for a number of years -- and a few "on-call" people, Smith said she finds herself wearing a lot of different hats. Tasks range from answering the phone to shopping, and cooking and attending the functions she caters; however, she said she tries not to drive and deliver the food herself.
One aspect of the business that has kept her going for 26 years is the creativity of cooking.
"Cooking is really creative," she says. "You eat first with your eyes. Then what you eat better taste good!"
But what she really seems to cherish most about the job are the friendships with her employees and the fun they spend together.
"We almost always have a lot of fun here," she said. "I enjoy the camaraderie. When you serve people, you make them happy. It's a fun, spread-the-joy kind of job. Our whole deal in life is that we're going to have more fun than the people we're catering to. I think you have to have a little fun with it. When it stops being fun, I think I'll know it's time to quit."