Hometown Eats: Chris’s Coffee & Custard

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) - A new restaurant in Roanoke is serving up great food with an even better purpose. Since opening at the beginning of March, Chris’s Coffee & Custard has been a hit in the Star City.

Named after Chris Woodrum, the business gives adults with special abilities a place to work and earn a paycheck. Beth Woodrum, Chris’s mom, started brainstorming the idea over four years ago.

“I was looking at the options for him after high school once he graduated, and there really were not a whole lot of options once these individuals with special abilities age out of school, and so I thought there’s got to be something I can do,” she said.

Chris’s offers delicious coffee, cookies, cinnamon buns, and of course incredible homemade custard. Woodrum said they start with a plain base, and then add in their special ingredients to make the custard explode with flavor.

“We would mix a certain amount of one with a certain amount of the other, and then we did a lot of different combinations until we finally came up with this one,” she said. “Once this one came out and we tried it, Chris was here and his dad was here and they tried it, and we were, like oh, this is it.”

“They did a lot of testing to get the vanilla custard to taste the way that it does now, and I think they nailed it,” said WDBJ7′s Josh Birch.

They also offer other homemade goods, including to-die-for chicken salad that you can get on a bed of lettuce or on a croissant.

Chris’s Coffee & Custard is at 1824 9th St SE, Roanoke, VA 24013. The phone number is (540) 774-4848.

If you have a local restaurant Josh should check out, send him an email at jbirch@wdbj7.com or connect with him on Facebook at Josh Birch WDBJ7.

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