Business

There's 'love in every bite' at 316 Chadwick Avenue

Jenny and Mike Breedlove operate deli on Chadwick Avenue that also serves mini-donuts and ice cream.

By Bill Moss, Published: June 29, 2021

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Mike Breedlove found himself in precisely the wrong business.

“Everything went flat line,” says Breedlove, who ran his own charter bus company in Hendersonville. “We had spring trips set with the schools, we had church trips, we had senior trips. All of it came to a screeching halt. And I had to refund a lot of money, because nobody was traveling.”
With no end in sight to the shutdown of travel, Breedlove was not sure how he and his wife, Jenny, were going to make a living.
“I was really worried,” he said. “One day, I got up and I said to Jenny, ‘God didn’t bring us Hendersonville just to abandon us.’”
Then he thought of cooking, a passion that might have been second only to motorcoach travel. He told Jenny: “I’ll go out and I’ll buy two trailers, from Leonard’s, and I’ll turn them into food trailers.”
“That was the end of March,” he recalls. “By the first of May I had ‘em all done. I was probably one of the forerunners of food trailers in this town. I bought a hot dog cart. I bought a donut machine. I bought my own ice cream machine. The other trailer was food, and it went so good that by last December, I did eight catering jobs. I was exhausted. I was worn out.”
He was thinking about opening his own brick-and-mortar place when he spotted a house on Chadwick Avenue for lease.
“So this place was on the market and ironically enough, our address here is 316 Chadwick Avenue,” he says. “I came and I prayed over this house. I said, ‘John 3:16.’ I said I gotta get it and I got it at the end of December. January and February, six days a week, I’m in here remodeling, painting, setting things up, buying fixtures, buying furniture, buying equipment.”
Mike Breedlove serves up a plate.The result at the serendipitous address is Breedlove’s Deli Donuts & Ice Cream, which has earned an enthusiastic following for its mix of mini-donuts, ice cream and deli sandwiches in the three months since it opened.
“We did not think this was going to take off as fast as it did,” he says.
The menu features nine kinds of hot dogs — from chili cheese to Chicago to the Texas dog (bacon, grilled onions, barbecue sauce, shredded cheese) to the pork BBQ dog — summer salad with grilled chicken, fresh strawberries mandarin oranges and pecans ($7.59) and Cobb salad and grilled chicken salad. The impressive lineup of deli sandwiches includes bratwurst ($5.59), pulled pork ($6.29), the Mater Sandwich (heirloom tomatoes with Duke’s mayonnaise ($5.29), grilled Reuben ($6.99), grilled pimento cheese ($5.49), toasted BLT ($6.59) and turkey and bacon avocado ($6.59). Mini-donut flavors recently included s’mores, funnel cake, turtle, PB&J, Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles. Breedloves also serves a $10.50 daily special including drink, chips and a half dozen mini-donuts or scoop of ice cream.
Breakfast options are avocado toast on cranberry walnut bread, a breakfast sandwich, French toast, pancakes and a special of eggs and bacon or sausage with loaded home fries.

Breedlove’s upbringing instilled a passion for cooking and a working knowledge of basics.
“My mother’s German and my grandmother’s German so as a young boy I learned how to cook. Since I’ve been here I’ve done a lot of things I’ve never done before. It’s all up here,” he says, pointing to his temple. “If you think it, you can do it. I didn’t think I could pull off an Irish Bash, like we did Sunday. I created a real delicious brown gravy to go with the pork tenderloin, I did corned beef, I had redskin potatoes. I’ve learned how to do sour cream potato salad, baked beans and brisket. I made soups, cole slaw, chili for the hot dogs and I do a chicken salad with cranberries and walnuts that people love. I had to do something because I had nothing.”

Mini-donuts are a popular breakfast item and dessert.“We don’t have burgers and fries and we’re not going to,” he adds, choosing not install a $12,000 commercial kitchen hood in a building he doesn’t own.
In the next few weeks, he’s planning to introduce takeout.
“We got a lot of folks from Kenmure that come here and they want to buy ready-to-go meals,” he says.
As for beer and wine, he leans against the idea but won’t rule it out. Jenny favors adding alcoholic beverages. He’s buying two more donut machines and plans to sell packaged donuts at convenience stores, and for breakfast bars at Echo Mountain Inn, Hampton Inn and Cascades Mountain Resort.
Aside from one extra cook in the kitchen, the deli operates with a staff of Mike, Jenny and their 15-year-old son, Cody. Mike took advice from a chef when he was planning to open his "Love in every bite" deli.
“Here was the part that I thought was worth a lot of gold,” he recalls. The advice? “Build your restaurant as if you and your wife are the only two people that are going to work it.”

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Mike and Jenny are throwing a combination grand opening and Celebrate America party from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday with chopped barbecue and barbecue chicken and two live music shows — Gary Lockloby at 1 p.m. and Nello and Michelle from 2 to 4 p.m. — plus free Breedlove sundaes, made of two mini-donuts topped with a scoop of ice cream. The deli, at 316 Chadwick Ave., is open 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The website is breedloves.deli.com. To place an order call 828-290-5152.