Yum Yum’s, which opened in December 2014, is a food specialty shop that provides customers with home-cooked meals they can request and pick up in the same day.
Tod Bottcher, chef and owner of Yum Yum’s, has been in the food business for more than 25 years. He said he has started several restaurants and worked in the kitchens of his own restaurants, as well as restaurants owned by others.
A native of Oneonta, Bottcher has lived in Auburn since he attended Auburn University in 1981. He has always had ties to the University, with several members of his family being alumni. He also met his wife, Linda, in Auburn, and they decided to stay because they loved the area and saw it as a great place to raise a family.
Bottcher said he and Linda came up with the concept for Yum Yum’s one night after he realized working in a restaurant on nights and weekends was wearing him down.
“My wife and I sat around one night, and we came up with this idea because (cooking) is what I love to do,” Bottcher said. “Cooking is who I am. It’s what I do.”
Bottcher’s wife, Linda, said she also likes that Yum Yum’s is a place that allows people to easily get a home-cooked meal that might have taken them hours to cook on their own.
“We are all so cramped for quality time with our family and friends, and a home cooked meal can be the highlight of our time together,” Linda said. “Convenience and good food are a lot of the times mutually exclusive. That’s what I like about this idea.”
Bottcher also said he came up with the idea to cook fresh meals every day, which benefits both him and the customer. It allows Bottcher to close at a set time every day so he can spend time with his family, and it ensures the food is always fresh.
“At 10 o’clock in the morning, that’s when people will have their first hunger pangs, and you do think about dinner,” Bottcher said. “And that’s where I came up with 10 as the cutoff [for placing orders].”
Bottcher said the 10 a.m. cutoff also gives him time to go out and obtain any extra ingredients he may need to fulfill a request. He can make anything off the menu or the Pinterest link on their Facebook page, and he also works with dietary restrictions. He then prepares the meal before it can be picked up from 4-6 p.m.
According to Bottcher, the original idea for Yum Yum’s focused more on providing soups, salads and sides to go for dads who needed something extra to go with a basic meal. It has since expanded to provide more entrée-like foods and is popular with students, busy mothers and anyone who wants to take a night off from cooking.
Yum Yum’s has a wide variety of items on the menu, most of which are Bottcher’s original recipes. He said some of his personal favorites include the death by chocolate, dolmades, twice-baked seafood potatoes and the house salad dressing, which is a 45-year-old family recipe. According to Bottcher, one of the most popular items on the menu is the hamburger pie.
The menu also includes a few recipes from Bottcher’s uncle, Charlie, who he credits with sparking his passion for cooking early in his life.
From the time Bottcher and the other kids in his family were 8 or 9 years old, they were helping their uncle cook for his catering business before he opened his first restaurant.
“That’s where I found my love for food,” Bottcher said. “It’s just so cool to make something that’s delicious.”
Bottcher would follow a similar path to his uncle and open the first of his own restaurants in 1993. Bottcher’s Grill, which was also located in Auburn, ran successfully for 13 years.
A former Auburn student himself, Bottcher said he understands students’ cravings for home-cooked meals.
“I can cook at least as good as their moms, if not better,” Bottcher said, laughing. “I just want these kids to know that I can mama them, and they don’t have to put up with the nagging.”
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