Foodies enjoyed a record 10th day Oct. 6, which means more happy dancing for the Heflins.

As for how the colorful restaurant and catering business came to occupy the former winery on Front Street, “It’s your fault,” Carol informs us.

By that she means Students of the Month splashed across the front page of the Daily News impressed her husband, Dave, about Dowagiac when he finally decided to quit cooking for others and to open an establishment dedicated to craftsmanship, quality and fresh ingredients that constitute “real food.”

“I said, ‘Man, this is where I want my grandchildren to grow up,’ ” Dave said Thursday afternoon. “It almost chokes me up that the community wraps itself around kids who are going through the toughest stage of life.”

“To this day,” Carol said, “he calls Dowagiac paradise.”

The Heflins raised six children and have always had the sociable house where everyone wants to congregate.

“At Christmas, we might have 40 people,” Carol said. “People call and say, ’Can we come to your house?’ ”

Open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, Foodies serves breakfast and lunch.

Someone slips Carol a note informing her that the previous day’s bus tour called to let her know that the eggs Benedict was worth the drive from Holland.

Eggs Benedict’s Hollandaise sauce is made for each order. It’s served on an English muffin with hand-sliced Canadian bacon. The sauce combines egg yolk, lemon, dijon mustard, cayenne pepper, a bit of hot sauce and melted butter.

”Next week we’re adding eggs Florentine,” with sauteed spinach, cream and nutmeg.

“We have no fryers — on purpose,” Carol said.

“It forces us to be more creative with side dishes. Our potatoes are roasted with rosemary, olive oil, garlic and kosher salt. This week we did potato pancakes. Next week we’re having Foodies beans as a side — homemade baked beans. Our menu will change as the seasons change. Right now we make fresh salsa, but in another two weeks we won’t be able to get Michigan tomatoes.”

They open at other times to cater private events on- and off-site. “We’re hoping to do a lot of Christmas parties,” Carol said.

The fifth item down on the lunch menu stands out because the vegetarian Heidi Wrap was inspired by Dowagiac attorney Heidi Behnke.

“I made it up and didn’t know if it was worth eating, but she liked it and said I should put it on the menu,” Carol recalled. “Every day it’s different. We genuinely like food, we like to feed people and we like people. My daughter who’s in law school will be helping this weekend. I have a son who does Web design and programming for people all over the country. He comes on Sundays to help cook.

“I want to hire local — two local people work for us part-time — but I don’t want to overhire. We have free wi fi and we are going to add cappuccinos, lattes and mochas. I haven’t done it yet because I don’t want to slow us down while we’re learning. Our coffee is free trade organic coffee,” which means adults pick the beans for a fair wage rather than “virtual slave” children, with a portion of profits going to schools.

Foodies also wants to have outdoor seating on Depot Drive come spring.

“Designer omelets” are one breakfast choice.

For one $6 price the entry can be loaded up with whatever items you want from a list. “Artisan burgers” are prepared the same way. Ice tea hints at orange and spice. “Good Morning Parfaits” are yogurt sweetened with honey and fruit. Oatmeal comes with brown sugar, raisins and chopped-up apples.

Dave was the youngest of seven children and learned to cook “hanging out in the kitchen, where it was safe, with Mom.” His mother became ill in his teenage years and he took on preparing meals.

He worked in restaurants after high school and found he “loved it.”

Dave got plenty of formal training, too.

Brown Derby sent him to the Culinary Institute.

He also went to Antoine’s in New Orleans.

“I was traveling and she had four teen-agers in the home at the same time,” he said. “Not only that, but an 85- to 90-hour week, by 40 I wasn’t up for it anymore. I went back and got a master’s degree in public administration,” but he didn’t quit cooking in his new life in community development.

The Portage resident ran the Edison Neighborhood Association.

Purpose of the ENA was to further the common good and general welfare of residents of the ethnically diverse neighborhood through civic betterment activities, such as combating crime and promoting public safety; encouraging economic development and employment; promoting urban planning; supporting efforts to improve quality of life and human services; and promoting efforts to provide and upgrade housing.

“He raised a lot of money cooking for fundraisers,” such as New Orleans nights, Carol said.

“I went there as an AmeriCorps volunteer,” Dave said. “The executive director got pregnant and wanted to move back up north to where she was raised to raise her child, so the board offered me the job, which I jumped at because it was the perfect laboratory to do a master’s in public administration.”

By 2003, however, a lot of funding had been redirected to homeland security and the Iraq war.

“I didn’t find community development in Iraq half as interesting,” he laughs as Carol offers samples of their specialty, desserts — chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter filling (sold out Tuesday) and apple turnovers — after a plate of sandwiches — pulled pork, tacos, BLT&A (bacon lettuce, tomato and avocado) and chicken salad, whose intriguing ingredients include grapes.

“Carol had a credit card-processing business and I was doing technical assistance and missing this,” Dave said. “This was something I couldn’t see doing when there were six kids to raise, but with them gone… I’ve been down here every day since June 3, when we took possession, working 10 to 12 hours a day” to realize his “clear vision” for “something warm, but modern, where people feel relaxed, yet stimulated.”

Carol’s sister is an artist and collaborated on the decor.

While he is known as the cooking half of the duo, Dave said, “She probably has a finer palate in terms of tasting, even though mine is more educated, and she’s very creative. My very first job was in The Carousel on W. Main with homemade ice cream. It was so long ago I remember my salary was 90 cents an hour.

“From there, I worked at a cafeteria, Win Schuler’s, the Elks Country Club for quite a few years in the early ’70s, then the Brown Derby. I’ve never really added it all up, but probably 25 years. Five years with Red Lobster Corp. of General Mills. I didn’t like that. They have a unique position in the marketplace because they own all the factors of production. They own fishing boats, develop their own technology for finding fish, they own the plants the fish is processed in and the trucks.”

What he didn’t like was throwing away $3,000 worth of fish a day as a corporate write-off, but the biggest thing was quashing the creativity he can let flourish as an independent operator.

Big chains “shoot for mediocre because they can reach that more than 75 percent of the time,” Dave said. “They wouldn’t let you excel and they wouldn’t let you give food away. I like controlling the atmosphere better.”

Carol, who also has a background in political consulting, said, “Dowagiac is an amazing town. All the artwork and statues in a town this size, and Beckwith Theatre,” where son Alex Nehring is getting involved.

“They are the most hospitable people I’ve known,” her husband agreed.

“The other businesses send us people all day,” she said. “Saylor’s Pizza were our first customers and welcomed us. The first people we met were the Methodist minister and his wife (John and Debbie Kasper). We’re catering their daughter’s wedding and she watches our granddaughter.”

Before Foodies won as the name, Carol ran Papa’s, which the 11 grandkids call Dave, past the opinionated sextet.

“I was going to decorate it with pictures of them with food,” she said. “They thought it was the stupidest thing they ever heard and sounded like a greasy spoon.”

Foodies seemed to sum up Dave, “the guy in the grocery store, looking at vegetables and wanting to know where they come from — especially after the cantaloupe scare” in Colorado.