It’s 6:30 a.m. Shawna Tipton opens the doors to what was once Henderson’s Hotel Soaper. Her footsteps fall on the floor of the 100-year-old building that is now home to a restaurant attracting hundreds daily—Hometown Roots. Tipton begins a day of meal prep, although the first customers won’t walk through the doors for another 10 hours.
But Hometown Roots owner Casey Todd says that time definitely is not wasted.
“We literally make everything from scratch here in-house,” Todd says. “There’s a lot of prep involved, but that’s what truly takes us over the edge and makes our product superior and extremely tasty.”
From smoked meatloaf to deep-fried pimento fritters, the restaurant offers down-home dishes.
“We’re truly Southern comfort food,” he says. “It was what I was raised on.”
Hometown Roots offers more than 150 bourbons as well as 16 beers on tap, 14 of them local craft beers. Todd also has expanded further into the Soaper building’s first floor by opening a coffee bar.
“We’re trying to stay with our local roots. That’s what our name is, but it’s also our philosophy,” he says.
The restaurant opened its doors in August 2018, but the menu and business plan had been a dream of Todd’s for many years.
Having always wanted to open his own restaurant, the Henderson native left his western Kentucky hometown to study hospitality management at the University of Kentucky.
He was able to pay his tuition from the money he made with a shaved ice stand that he had taken over from his brother, Nick (who paid his way to Western Kentucky University), when he was in high school. In addition to running the shaved ice stand, Todd also worked as a fry cook at Henderson’s Rookies Sports Bar & Grill.
“That’s where I caught the bug … drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak,” he says.
Over the next decade, Todd worked many jobs in the restaurant and hospitality industry, taking him to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and eventually back closer to home in Bowling Green.
That’s when the call to own his own restaurant became louder. It was the winter of 2017 when he came home to Henderson to spend time with his family and explored potential restaurant locations. But nothing came to fruition until he packed up the car to head back to Bowling Green.
“As I hopped in the car, I took off, and I just couldn’t quite give up on the idea [of opening his own place],” Todd says. “I really wanted to move back home; being close to family was really what I was interested in … I turned around at the riverfront and headed toward the interstate and got caught by a stoplight at Second and Main streets. I looked over to the right, and there’s a building, and I’m like, ‘Oh! That’s a pretty cool building!’ I pulled over and began peeking in the windows.”
Todd’s plan was set in motion when he spent seven days calling the building’s owners, contractors and investors. In April 2018, renovation of the first floor of the old Soaper Building was underway. A few months later, Hometown Roots was officially opened for business.
“We completely gutted the building and built it all back ourselves and really created an amazing space,” he says. “It’s an urban industrial space with concrete floors, steel fixtures and lots of glass windows that look over Second and Main streets.”
Lindsey Lacasto, executive director of the Downtown Henderson Partnership, says it’s apparent Todd knew what he was doing.
“Not only did he put something in there that has been viable; he really invested. He did it right,” Lacasto says. “You can tell that he paid attention to every little detail, and it makes it not just a dining destination, but it makes it an experience destination. You just don’t go there to eat. The ambiance and the atmosphere make it a place where people want to come and visit.
“He chose to move back to Henderson to do his dream, his passion, his restaurant project, and he chose to do it here when he could have done it anywhere else. Everyone knew in Henderson that he had a great background in the restaurant industry, so knowing he was bringing his talent and his expertise to Henderson was really something that a lot of people were looking forward to.”
They apparently haven’t been disappointed, as the accolades roll in.
Since its opening, Hometown Roots has been awarded Downtown Henderson Partnership’s Downtown Business of the Year, the Henderson Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business of the Year and the Favorite Downtown Restaurant Award from Claire and the HOT 96 Morning Show’s first annual HOT Awards.
Todd says that, while the eatery continues to “receive the love” from the community, he’s still surprised by the success.
“Our life—my entire family’s life—turned 360 degrees in about seven days, but it was something we were truly passionate about, something that we had wanted to do for a while,” he says. “It was a great opportunity and an even better opportunity to move back home to be so much closer to family.”
Hometown Roots
136 Second Street, #100, Henderson
270.212.3653 | hometownrootsky.com
Photos by Jordyn Myracle