Herb Ninja

Marijuana dreams

College student, mom are high on their Cheba Hut 'Toasted' Subs shop

11-22-2004 | Katya Cengel | The Courier-Journal

Two-foot-long papier-mâché joints rest above one of the restaurant's doors and TV set. The menu offers Thai Stick, White Widow and Northern Lights — sandwiches and salads, not strands of marijuana.

Next to the cash register sits a 4-inch-high figurine of a man smoking a joint and a basket filled with "hemp brownies" and Rice Krispies bars.

Pictures of men in Afros getting high decorate the walls; there's a marijuana leaf clock, and a poster of a 1950s salesman with "marijuana" printed at the top and "Proud sponsors of ... um ... we forget!" on the bottom.

No, it's not a college student's dream cafeteria. All of these images contribute to the ambience at the new Cheba Hut "Toasted" Subs shop on Baxter Avenue.

If there is a dream, it belongs to co-owner Josh Lee, a 23-year-old student who until recently attended concerts where hemp brownies and Rice Krispies bars were shared and who understands the connection between food and marijuana.


"There just seems to be a huge correlation (between) stoners and munchies," said Josh.

It's a correlation that led Josh, who's given to zip-up hooded sweatshirts and backward baseball caps, to dream of starting his own little cafe with a marijuana theme.

But Josh says his original vision wasn't as blatant as the Cheba Hut, the sub shop he and his mother, Kim Lee, opened last month. On the restaurant's menu are the Shwag, the KGB and the Acapulco Gold sandwiches — along with a statement explaining that, "All names 'refer' to subs only." Three walls of the shop are covered with a mural that features a turtle smoking marijuana — painted by his mother.

It was Kim, a 46-year-old freelance artist, who came up with the idea of opening a Cheba Hut in Louisville. Despite appearances, the sub shop promises to sell nothing illicit. The food contains nothing psychoactive; and the hemp brownies are just brownies topped with commercial hemp seed shells.

Cheba Hut actually is a chain. There are three in Arizona, one in Colorado and now one in Louisville.

'A cool fit'

Kim discovered Cheba Hut while on vacation in Arizona last March. The toasted sandwiches were so good, she says, that she called Josh, a culinary student at Sullivan University, to tell him. Josh asked his mother to bring back a menu, and the two were soon conspiring to open a Cheba Hut here.

When the duo shared their plans with friends and family, they were met with encouragement — and laughter.

"It's kind of hard to explain to your friends that you are going to take a sandwich shop related to marijuana and put it in Kentucky," said Josh.

Cheba Hut founder Scott Jennings came up with the theme for his restaurant from the Cheech and Chong movie "Nice Dreams" (1981), in which ice cream is named after different strains of marijuana, and from menus that his friends brought back from Amsterdam hash houses.

The idea of starting a toasted-sub shop that focused on "fun" more than "profit" dates to the 35-year-old communication major's college days at Arizona State University. When not attending classes, Jennings worked at delivery and drive-in food shops around campus and said he noticed that most of his employers were in the business for profit and not "to have a cool idea for the customer."

So he decided to combine food with his own idea — in this case a marijuana theme. In 1998, he opened his first Cheba Hut in Tempe, Ariz. Mesa, Tucson and, more recently, Fort Collins, Colo., followed. The name comes from rap artist Tone Loc's song "Cheeba Cheeba," which is about getting high on marijuana and getting the munchies, Jennings said.

When the Louisville shop opened last month, it became the first Cheba Hut not managed by Jennings or one of his former employees. Jennings said he is ready for expansion.

"We don't want 2,000," he said during a phone interview from his home in Fort Collins. "But a couple hundred throughout the country would be all right. If it is a cool fit."

Kim and Josh Lee seem to be a "cool fit."

"They're kind of laid-back to begin with, but still very professional," said Jennings. "It would be very hard if it was just Josh or just Kim.

"But together it works."

The last word

The Lees agree. Josh says he wouldn't consider going into business with another partner. His mother believes the relationship will force them to work out conflicts instead of just staying mad or walking away.

And then there is the mother thing.

"Somehow 'Mom' usually has the last word," said Kim. "That makes it easier too."

Josh isn't complaining. At 23 and still studying, he knows he is lucky to have his own shop. And he says he works hard to keep it. The pair chose the location, oversaw construction and discussed everything from decorations to bread options.

On monetary matters, Kim has the final say. She used her own funds to open the shop, which Jennings estimates costs on average between $100,000 and $150,000.

On matters of the palate, Josh often has his way. He usually oversees the sandwich preparation work and takes care of ordering everything from bread to pepperoncinis. During the lunch rush, when the boss often mans the cash register, it is hard to tell him from the other college-age employees who make sandwiches.

But Sullivan chef instructor Allen Akmon can tell.

"He's a phenomenal cook," Akmon said of Josh. "He's got a feel for the kitchen."

He also has the will power, drive and work ethic to make a restaurant work, Akmon said — but whether the marijuana theme will pan out, he said, is another matter.

Even Josh wonders sometimes whether a marijuana-themed sandwich shop in what he calls "the outskirts of the Bible Belt" will work.

"We try not to have it (the marijuana theme) overwhelming, so the average person who doesn't believe what we believe can come in and eat," said Josh.

Still, some customers, such as 20-year-old Mathieu Milton, say they come in because of, not despite, the theme. But like Clayton Sasse, 21, they plan to become regulars. Jennings, at least, has no doubt that Cheba Hut will work in Louisville.

"It's a hip, little city down there."

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