Retired O’Carr’s owner Cameron O’Carr talks newly published book, recipes, stories + more

For nearly 50 years, Cameron and June O’Carr owned and operated their own restaurant and catering service in Birmingham called O’Carr’s. Over the decades, the two served more than their fair share of interesting customers and even some celebrities.

This year, the couple published a book, O’Carr’s Eat By Color Restaurant: A History, Stories and Recipes, chronicling their experience as restaurant owners in Birmingham. We talked to Cameron O’Carr about their new book and about the new book, and here’s what we found out.

Passing the torch after nearly 5 decades in Birmingham

In 2022, after 47 years of ownership, the O’Carrs retired and sold their business to Kenneth Rhodes who currently operates O’Carr’s in Homewood. Cameron and June had always wanted to write a book, but it wasn’t until they retired that they finally had the time to sit down and document all of their favorite stories.

The original O’Carr’s opened as an ice cream shop in November of 1975. As it became clear that it was way too cold to sell ice cream, they added soups and sandwiches to the menu for the cost of only 99 cents. With the growth of the restaurant came new menu and catering, like cheesecake and eventually their famous chicken salad—which now accounts for nearly 50% of their sales.

“In 1999, we were doing City Stages Music Festival and we were catering the VIP area. So, we said we’ll add chicken salad, just see how it goes. If it goes well, we’ll add it to the restaurant menu. So we were feeding probably 4,500 people It went well, everybody liked it and we added that to the to the restaurant menu. It’s kind of evolved and changed two or three times from that first recipe. But it now amounts to about 50% of our sales. It turned out to be a monster in a good in a good way.”

Cameron O’Carr for Bham Now

The O’Carr’s secret to a long-lasting business

So, what’s the secret to running a business for nearly 50 years? For the O’Carrs, it’s all about taking care of their people like family. They’ve had the same dishwasher for 37 years, so they must be doing something right.

“We’ve always thought of our restaurant as our restaurant family. We would find ways for entry level positions to earn more money so that they could have a living wage. We said you know, can you take out a little more responsibility. And they became, I mean, they were hugely important. We would do we every kind of holiday and have some sort of a holiday meal for the staff that June and I would cook. You know, a Thanksgiving meal in case somebody didn’t have a family Thanksgiving or a Christmas Eve meal or whatever it was.”

Cameron O’Carr for Bham Now

Stories, recipes, celebrity clients + more

Over the years, the O’Carrs have experienced all kinds of interesting people and have plenty of stories to tell. They’ve catered for Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffet, Dolly Parton, Styx, Little River Band and various other performers on tour in Birmingham. 

Cameron gave us a sneak peek into some of the stories you can expect in O’Carr’s Eat By Color Restaurant: A History, Stories and Recipes, like one particularly wild tale of a wedding party gone wrong. According to Cameron, they were catering a wedding when two men got involved in a fist fight.

“Well, when it came time to cut the wedding cake, we were wheeling out to coffee carts and the pastry carts and all of those things. All of a sudden we heard this big crash and the pastry cart was turned over, the coffee and China are bouncing all over the floor. Two people were scuffling on the floor and it turned out to be the groom and the best man. And the best man announces to everybody that he’s sorry, but he slept with a bride the night before.”

Cameron O’Carr for Bham Now

Well, that’s certainly not a normal day at work.

To check out more stories and recipes, grab a copy of O’Carr’s Eat By Color Restaurant: A History, Stories and Recipes at the restaurant or keep an eye out for its Amazon release.

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