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July 23, 2008

Nestlé Toll House Café is heaven for chocolate lovers

By Karen Middleton The News Courier Wed Jul 23, 2008, 09:26 PM CDT

Remember when your mom pulled a pan of Toll House cookies out of the oven and you broke them apart and strands of piping hot chocolate briefly stretched between the halves before breaking to drip on your eager fingertips?

You don’t? Well, Pat Madsen doesn’t remember that scenario either.

Her mom boiled potatoes and roasted meat in her New Jersey home for her husband and children, but that was it.

“I turned into the baker in the family at an early age,” said Madsen. “My brothers and sisters looked to me for something sweet.”

Now, Madsen is hoping the entire Athens and Limestone County community will look to her when they want something sweet. Madsen is the proprietor of Nestlé Toll House Café in the former Guthrie’s Chicken store off U.S. 72 East.

The café opened July 17 and Madsen said Wednesday she has high hopes that the community that embraced her family when they moved to Athens four years ago from Pennsylvania with Bechtel Engineering will stop in for freshly baked cookies, ice cream, smoothies and coffee.

The Nestlé Toll House Café is the first of its kind in Alabama and one of 102 nationwide.

“It’s a fairly new concept and I just knew it would be so great for Athens,” said Madsen.

Madsen baked Toll House cookies for her four children, Danny, 30, Kathryn, 28, Kevin, 20, and Drew, 18, while they were growing up and she also baked sweet treats for a seasonal gift shop she managed in North Coventry, Pa. She said she also liked managing a store.

When Madsen’s husband, Gil, was transferred to Athens four years ago with Bechtel to work on the Browns Ferry Unit 1 restart, she began looking around for business opportunities.

“I had no pre-conceived ideas about the South before moving to Athens, but the people here just embraced us,” she said. “Our son got involved in football and it was just so good for our family. We’ve met some really great people.

“I had managed an Auntie Anne’s Pretzels shop that sells those big Amish soft pretzels with fresh-squeezed lemonade in Pennsylvania and I knew how much I enjoyed that so I got in touch with the company when we moved down here and opened an Auntie Anne’s in the University Mall in Tuscaloosa.”

But she was looking for something closer to Athens and heard that Guthrie’s Restaurant would be closing and the space would become available.

“I called the landlord and he told me about Nestlé Toll House Café, so I called the head of Nestlé and after talking with the company I just fell in love with them—they are so nice to work for,” she said.

The Madsens’ son, Danny, lives in New York, where he manages a Mother Earth health food and vitamins store. However, the rest of the family made the move to Athens. Daughter Kathryn is working at Wal-Mart while studying for a master’s degree in engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She also helps out at the café.

Son Kevin, whom his mother describes as “a computer wiz,” got the computer system at the shop up and running. Drew is enrolled at the University of Alabama and will be staring classes in August. She said both sons pitched in to get the café ready to open.

“We’re here at 5:30 a.m. to get everything baked fresh by the time we open at 7:30,” she said. “We haven’t gotten through all the recipes yet.”

Madsen said, not surprisingly, the Toll House cookies are big sellers, as well as the Turtle Brownies and the Peanut Butter Cups.

“What’s neat is you can pick your cookie and your ice cream flavor and make your own ice cream sandwich,” she said.

Madsen said she would order coupon books for non-profit organizations’ fund-raising projects. She said she would also do catering and she offers a light breakfast of cinnamon rolls, coffee and fruit smoothies with nutritional additives upon request.

Terri Coffield is operations manager and Bonnie Collins is manager.

“I’ve got 15 people working here either part or full time and the neat thing is I never had to advertise,” she said. “Word just got around and the enthusiasm has been great.”

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