MARIJUANA DREAMS

College Student, Mom Are High on Their Cheba Hut 'Toasted' Subs Shop

Two-foot-long papier-mache 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.

Sandwich maker Ryan Smith pulled a sub from the oven. "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."