Marty's Stew Shack
Nov. 12—"Reckon we could sell it?"
That simple question would lead to the start of Marty's Stew Shack in Anderson, Ala. Owner Marty Thompson began cooking and selling his delicious stew over 20 years ago but the Lauderdale County Schools janitor expanded his business after he retired.
"Twenty five years ago, one of my best friends [Mike Hammond] and I were going to cook a pot of stew outside, and we did," Marty said.
Hammond's parents owned a barbecue restaurant in Grassy, Ala. The stew recipe is based on the one they used at their restaurant. That night, they began to wonder if other people would buy their stew. They cooked more stew and they got their answer — yes! People started buying the stew right away
"The health department came along and said, 'You can't do that.' We had to build a building to make it health department approved. We started cooking stew 20-23 years ago. I built a building and got it approved. After I retired, I said I was going to build a little dairy den with ice cream and my own barbecue," he said.
Marty did build the dairy den, and Marty's Stew Shack is thriving and will celebrate being open six years in April 2023. Marty and his wife Cheryl serve up a variety of great food daily, including hamburgers and sandwiches, Marty's own pit cooked barbecue, and ice cream. As for the stew that started it all, it is available once a month by pre-order.
"We cook stew once a month. We've always done that. Fourth of July we'll do about 350 gallons, but on the average month we do about 175 gallons. We have a sign up that if they don't pick their stew up by noon, unless you asked us to keep it, we sell it. We have people waiting at 12 o'clock hoping somebody doesn't come pick up their stew. We have goat, chicken, and beef," Marty said.
He added, "Everybody thinks, 'Why is it called the Stew Shack if you're going to have stew once a month? You should have stew all the time.' I can sell around 200 gallons of stew once a month in about three hours and you're done versus cooking it everyday, keeping it warm, and selling it by the bowl.
Goat is the most popular in pre-orders, but they make more chicken stew each month.
"I cook more chicken because people come and snarl their nose up if they don't know it. It's mostly the men that want the goat stew, and women would rather buy the chicken. If you have anything there and people come up, they will buy the chicken quicker than anything," Marty explained.
On monthly stew days, Marty and his crew fire up the cast iron pots around 2:30 a.m.
He said, "We try to have the stew ready by 8:30 or 9, and by 12 o'clock, we already have it dipped in quart containers, it's gone, we got the pots cleaned and put up, and we have everything done. So far, it's always worked that way."
One of the main reasons Marty's Stew Shack is able to pull-off stew days so efficiently as well as provide great food and service each day is his friends and staff, including Donnie Williams and Janice Ferguson who have been with him for over four years.
"We all like doing this. My help, without them, I couldn't do this. I have some darn good help and they make it all worth while. Everyone has a role to play, and everybody does a real good job," Marty said. "Some of the ones that ain't gotta work are my best help."
For Marty and his staff, taking care of the community is important . "We do our part to be an old time dairy dip. We make sure everything is good. All our sauces are homemade. Our hamburger meat is never froze. Our barbecue is fresh off the pit. We do a little catering, too," he said. "We don't advertise. We try to help the schools, and that's where most of our extra money goes. We always feed the coaches after the ballgames and stay open late for the kids to come by here after the games. We are just a mom and pop shop."
Marty's Stew Shack is open seven days a week 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and offers dine-in and carry out. Hours are extended in the summer months. The next stew date is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 3. To pre order, call (256) 247-7988. Marty's Stew Shack is located at 4728 Hwy 207 in Anderson, Ala.
