By Bonnie Culverhouse
When Ricky Thomas approached his wife Claudine about purchasing an old building in downtown Minden, she said, OK. After all, she had a great job and Ricky needed a project.
“He just wanted to own a building in downtown Minden,” Claudine said.
Purchase of the old Holland-Crawford Insurance building was made in 2017.
“We did a lot of brainstorming during that time of what we might do with building,” Claudine said. “The world had shut down, and I was working my job in Human Resources from home.”
During all this time, Ricky and Claudine were collecting sports memorabilia, so it was likely no surprise when Ricky announced he wanted to either make a man cave or a sports grill of the building. Claudine’s vote was for the sports grill, but she readily admits she knew ZERO about the restaurant business.
“Ricky was a manager at McDonald’s, but that was the extent of his knowledge,” she said.
“The biggest thing I learned at McDonald’s was consistency,” Ricky said. “Put a timer on it. You don’t have to add a lot to the burgers, let the grill do its job.”
They got down to work and after four years of building and with a little (lot) of help from their friends, The Thomas’ family opened Under Dawgs five years ago. According to Claudine, Bush Carnahan (owner of Crawfish Hole in Dixie Inn) taught them a lot about the restaurant business. Scott McAllister spent time with them teaching about ordering food, setting up their menus and specials, prepping and cleaning.
“Scott knows a lot about the food service business,” Ricky said. “He convinced us that 100 percent Angus beef was the best way to go.”
But Travis Campbell, who passed away January 9, 2022, was their biggest inspiration.
“Travis worked for us a month or six weeks,” Claudine said. “He was selling insurance at the time, but one to two times a week he’d come in the evenings because we were short on cooks.”
Travis helped them perfect their cooking processes and showed Claudine how to make his favorite burger – the Black and Blue.
“He gave us a whole lot of tips,” she said. “We named that burger the Travis Campbell Black and Bllue after him and are forever grateful for his insight.”
Ricky said Claudine’s experience in human resources is the reason they have such a good staff at Under Dawgs.
“She has a special gift in hiring people,” Ricky said. “They stay with us a long time, but when they do leave, they know a lot about this world.”
And, he said, Claudine is the reason they are successful.
“She has made the business successful,” he said. “I told her in the beginning that we were going to be successful, but we would be the ones to determine how successful it would be.”
So why the name Under Dawgs?
“We were thinking about how many ball players lived in Webster Parish and were from a depressed area,” Claudine said, “and how they were given an opportunity to go play at college, then were drafted into professional sports; they were the underdogs. We made it two words and used DAWGS since I am a Louisiana Tech alumnus.”
Under Dawgs’ menu has expanded by two-thirds over the past five years with the addition of salads, more types of wings, chicken sandwiches and more appetizers to their burgers and dawgs.
During the couple of years after CoVid, Under Dawgs grew while other businesses struggled.
“We were growing by three to five percent,” Claudine said. “Consistently we are probably growing five to 10 percent per year now. We are so blessed.”
Ricky, who was supposed to manage the business, now has a full-time job with City of Minden and Claudine manages the sports grill full time.
The restaurant is only 1800 square feet in size.
“We’ve talked about expansion,” she said. “I’m not sure how we would do that; there’s really no where to go.”
However, there will be no more looking for jobs for Ricky and Claudine (well, Claudine anyway) because Under Dawgs is here to stay.
Go cheer them on this week and celebrate their five-year anniversary with the good folks who work there and spend their time there.
And guess what? It’s always 5 o’clock at Under Dawgs … and, just like at Cheers, everybody knows your name.