Couple brings love of music and food to historic Wollenman Home

Tammy Bedolla spent about three years wondering if her voice would come back after having her thyroid removed.

“I could talk but I couldn’t sing,” she explained.

The 51-year-old who had been singing since she was seven years old was devastated that cancer had seemingly stolen her voice.

“I didn’t know if I was ever going to get to sing again,” she said. “Every time I tried to sing, my voice would crack.”

But, in just the past year, she’s regained her voice along with a resolve to live life as fully as possible. “I look at life a little bit differently now,” she said referring to her battle with cancer. “You need to make the best of it and try new things and if you fail, don’t ever give up. Don’t ever give up.”

So she’s following her dream of opening a restaurant. This Friday at 11 a.m., she and her husband, Martin, will open Soup-n-Such Bistro in the historic Wollenman Home at 1150 Main Street in Ferdinand.

The new business combines Tammy’s three loves, serving other, providing great food and music. She can’t wait to open to serve people.

“I love serving,” Tammy said. “I truly do. I can’t wait to be a thriving part of the community, trying to serve the best we can.”

Although she’s always wanted to own a restaurant, the way things have fallen in place in a little over a month have seemed like a dream.

She had been considering a location for the new business along the interstate when, during a Sunday service at the Covenant Life Church in Ferdinand in July, she remembered another location that could be intriguing.

“I was sitting in service and a thought came to me that I should drive by the old Wollenman Home,” she said.

The Swiss-style Chalet was renovated in 2013 as part of restoration efforts by the Ferdinand Historical Society and since then, had been home to the Monkey Hollow Bistro.

When she went by after church, there was a “For Lease” sign.

She met with Al and Diane Hoppenjans, members of the Ferdinand Historical Society and members of the group that saved the old home and got it placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. The historic nature of the building, as well as its Swiss design origin, appealed to the Birdseye native with Swiss-Dutch roots.

“It’s just beautiful,” she said.

During the meeting, Al and Diane let Tammy know about the pending closure of Fat & Sassy in Huntingburg and suggested she check it out for some of the items she would need to open up.

She went to meet with Chuck Walk at Fat & Sassy and purchased chairs and tables and other items needed for the new restaurant from him. Moving quickly, she was able to get the necessary financing and began to set up accounts for food services. With the decor being Mediterranean-inspired already, she was able to concentrate on the menu and the equipment needed to open up the new restaurant.

In a Mediterranean style, the menu prominently features soups, salads and paninis as well as plenty of pastries, cookies and brownies. There are also burgers, barbecue sandwiches and wraps available.

The menu expands a bit on weekends. Besides special dinners that will be available Friday and Saturday evenings (this Friday features pineapple-habanero glazed pork loin with just a little kick, according to Tammy), Saturday mornings the restaurant will open up earlier with hearty breakfast items like biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon and plenty of pastries. Sunday they’ll open back up for the church crowd as well.

While the recipes are mainly Tammy’s — she’s been cooking since she was 14 when she started at what was then Bill’s Truck Stop in Birdsey — Martin will be playing the jack-of-all-trades as he waits tables, meets with customers and helps keep things moving smoothly either mechanically or socially.

Besides starting off at Bill’s Truck Stop (now Deb’s Truck Stop), she’s been a chef at Cool Beans in Huntingburg and spent five years serving thousands of kids at Perry Central High School. Through the years, she’s regularly won awards at the Ferdinand Heimatfest or the Huntingburg Herbstfest for her baked items. Her special vegetable soup recipe has been featured in the Dubois Rural Electric magazine.

Don’t worry those recognized baked goodies and soups will be available regularly.

Since music has played such a large role in the couple’s lives, they plan on making Soup-n-Such a welcoming venue for musicians young and old.

“I’ve been playing guitar for 30 plus years and knowing you can get into a place to allow someone to hear your music is cool,” Martin explained.

The patio and pergola stage will make for a great outdoor venue for evening concerts or light music in a beautiful atmosphere.

It will also give Martin and Tammy a place to entertain when they can step outside of the other duties of running the restaurant.

They consider it a blessing they can even consider performing. In addition to Tammy’s battle with cancer, Martin almost lost his ability to play guitar when his left arm was crushed by a 1,800-pound machine at a factory. He’s left-handed and doctors told him it was unlikely he would ever play guitar again.

He’s proven them wrong. “Now I’m able to do more with my music than I could before the accident,” he explained.

Recently, while discussing their music, they wondered about a name for their duo. They bounced some names around and then Tammy got quiet for a few moments before coming upon the perfect name based on the setbacks they had experienced in the past few years: Second Chance.

They have their second chance. “Us as a team and our beliefs, there’s nothing stopping us,” Martin said about the endeavor.

The bistro will be open Fridays 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Soup-N-Such will be closed on Mondays, with lunch hours Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday — 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The bistro will be open Fridays 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and feature special menu items on those evenings.

The bistro can be reached at 812-998-2490 and on Facebook.