Fat Daddyz delivers family service to SL area
PHOTOS: 1-3. Fat Daddyz owner Michele Cram and her daughters Courtney and Katrina stand outside their new place of business Thursday afternoon.<br>4. Fat Daddyz owner Michele Cram talks business with her daughters Courtney and Katrina Thursday afternoon.<br>5. Fat Daddyz employees and managerial daughters Courtney and Katrina Cram contemplate what to do next upon opening their business to the public for the day Thursday afternoon.
'Pizza experts' bring new tastes to community — without Fat Daddy
An employee's letter of resignation is seldom an amusing thing.
But Michele Cram, owner of the new Fat Daddyz on 27 S. Daisy in Soap Lake with her husband Tom, recently found one to be quite humorous.
The employee giving notice in this instance was her 10-year-old daughter, Kassandra, whose summer job at the Cram family's new business was supposed to involve watering plants, sweeping the floor and other tasks.
"The other day she wrote us this letter that said she was sorry, Boss, 'I'm going to have to quit. I hope you understand,'" Cram recalled with a laugh. "It was pretty funny. (She quit) because it was interfering with her summer."
Kassandra's older sisters, Courtney, 12, and Katrina, 13, also help out at the eatery.
Besides family members, Fat Daddyz has two employees, Cram said. The business opened July 1.
"We'd been visiting the area probably for almost 10 years," Cram said. "(We) kind of fell in love with the area, and decided that we needed to find a way to get here."
Michele said that Tom had been looking for a change from his position as a sales manager for Schwan's in California. The Crams, who have been married 16 years, grew up in Rainier, Wash., so they were used to a town that was Soap Lake-sized and in the state.
"(The community has been) very supportive," she said. "The Soap Lake Revitalization Team has done a lot of things for us, came by, got the word that we're open, things like that."
While business has been sort of slow, Cram said, the addition of air conditioning to the dining area should help add to the comfort of people dining on site.
Fat Daddyz offers shakes, root beer floats and pizza, something Crum said the whole family excels at.
"We use a Focaccia bread crust, and it's a little different," she said. "We haven't really seen anything like that before. We tried a lot of different recipes and things until we found something that we really felt good about selling, and eating. With three kids, we ate pizza a lot, and so we felt like we kind of were pizza experts."
Long term, the family is thinking about expanding the dining area, and possibly adding a banquet room to house teams.
And as for Fat Daddy himself? Cram said that the name comes from their days owning a 24-foot barbecue grill that they would take to car and motorcycle races for catering. The name came out of the motorcycle races, she said.
"People are always asking, 'Where's Fat Daddy?'" she said. "So it's kind of a joke that he's an elusive, mysterious figure."
Fat Daddyz will deliver to the Soap Lake and Lakeview area between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., Crum said. The Fat Daddyz phone number is 509-246-1781.