When Dani Schiffer snuck bites of home-cooked food out of to-go containers while tending bar at The Hornet’s Nest, patrons noticed. It was 2018; Schiffer worked at Lefler Collision (now Gerber Collision) and was a part-time bartender who dedicated herself to eating healthier by making her own meals.
“A lot of them didn’t really like to cook,” Schiffer says of her bar patrons. What started as dishes for a few friends grew into meals for 10 as word spread. By 2021, she had established a niche for herself by producing ready-to-eat meals for clients. “If I’m going to do it, I might as well go for it,” she thought. Dishes by Dani launched full-time that July in the former Gatrick’s Bar-B-Que at the corner of South Kentucky Avenue and East Gum Street.
Nearly five years later, in a new location at 421 Read St. — the former site of Read St. BBQ — Schiffer estimates she makes 250 meals per week for clients ordering off her website or via text. To keep up with demand, she gets most of her ingredients from Sam’s Club — “they know me there,” she says — and updates Dishes by Dani’s Facebook with items she’s offering that week, usually “a little bit of everything,” she says. Customers can inhale a dill pickle chicken salad or jalapeño popper potato salad, then dig into blackened chicken mac and cheese, parmesan herb-crusted chicken, garlic parmesan or parmesan truffle salmon, or honey chipotle shrimp, and polish off a Biscoff pie for dessert. If your mouth isn’t already watering, Schiffer says the chicken bacon ranch pasta and lasagna are client favorites. “Chicken bacon ranch seems popular no matter what you do with it,” she says, but she enjoys experimenting: “I like making different kinds of salmon with Brussels sprouts.”
Schiffer’s experimentation also extends to sandwiches, like honey chipotle chicken and candied bacon pepper jack chicken. Schiffer also caters corporate events and hosts events, and her creations can be purchased at the Civic Center Complex’s snack shop. “I like that meal prepping makes life easier for people,” she says. Sometimes, “I wish someone would cook for me,” she says.
Don’t worry, she is not doing it all by herself. In 2023, Schiffer began leasing space at her former location to Sammi Jo Idleman of Syncere Sweets to offer walk-in customers hot food and baked goods, including cheesecake, brownies, pudding, as well as custom cake orders. Idleman had been cooking and baking for 10 years, but needed more work-life flexibility after her son was diagnosed with autism. Schiffer offered to lease her space.
“There’s nowhere else in Evansville that two businesses are thriving and successfully operating out of the same building,” Idleman says. “We help each other.”
Schiffer and Idleman also make take-and-bake meals, fresh salads, hot lunches, and more for walk-in customers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Schiffer gets help from part-time assistant Shannon Orr, as well as her son, Cris Carter, 19.
The most rewarding part of helping others eat well? When “people text me and tell me how good the food is,” she says.
