Dishin’ Up With Nancy Horn

Nancy Horn, of Reno, began dishing up her childhood dream when her colorful, eclectic, Dish Café and Catering on Mill Street, opened its doors on Nov. 21, 2002.

Horn was six years old when she realized her dream of becoming a restaurant owner. She recalls a trip to Cape Cod to her uncle’s restaurant and she was allowed to get anything she wanted. Not knowing the difference between a short stack and tall stack she ordered the biggest stack of pancakes they served.

“Here’s me I’m sitting there and I am as high as the plate and I just thought it looked so amazing and thought I’m going to have a restaurant too because of my uncle,” Horn said.

Horn spent years of her young life working side by side with family members, learning their secrets, thumbing through various cookbooks and watching cooking shows on television. At the young age of 10 she was more concerned with what was going on in the kitchen then she was with playing outside.

Nancy Horn trying to get her carrot frosting, for her turkey meatloaf cupcake, perfect before lunch hour Monday morning.

“We always had church bazaars across the street so all the mommas would make pierogies, meatballs and stuffed cabbage and all this stuff and I was always helping them do that instead of playing. I was like really you have to make 300 cabbage rolls? I’m your girl. I will roll the cabbage,” Horn said.

In 2001 Horn realized that her dream was closer than she could have ever imagined. She had moved to Berkley and grew tired of teaching, so she told her son Jacob that they moving back to Reno. She didn’t exactly know what she was going to do once she moved back, but knew that she was ready, more then ever, to open her own restaurant.

“I knew that it was the time to do it, so I found the location through the friend of a friend of a friend, and at the same time I also got a job offer for like the sweetest art job teaching in the world,” Horn said.

Horn was offered a great teaching opportunity and handed the keys to a restaurant all in the same week, and she had no money. However, the people of the restaurant space were going to offer her three or four months of free rent until she could find the money. Horn found herself face to face with a teaching job that would grant her stability and a restaurant space that would grant her that childhood dream.

“I had like a divine moment. I felt like God was like you’re totally not passionate about teaching anymore, but you can do it. I will bless that. If you want to be secure and safe and do something you know how to do, but don’t want to do anymore, do it, but if you will trust me for this money, if you will trust me with your dream then I will make it happen,” Horn said.

For Horn that was all she needed. She called and declined the teaching offer and was told that if she didn’t like the restaurant, or if she closed the restaurant that they would have a job for her the following year.

Nancy Horn helps customers at the register while her quiches cool on the counter beside her. Nancy was answering the phone, running the register, baking, cooking, and cleaning the tables Monday morning.

“So I did it, it was really hard and I borrowed money from friends and it was just a struggle for two years, but that’s what happened,” Horn said.

Today, Horn owns Dish Café and Catering with her husband Joe. They have their café, a catering business, they accept deliveries, they own a food truck and, when available, they only use ingredients that are locally grown in Northern Nevada to create their seasonal menu.

“Our ingredients are very specific and unique, we make everything from scratch, we never change the way we make things, we don’t take shortcuts,” Horn said.

This is also how Horn raised her son Jacob Moyle. She would make fresh bread, and the same chocolate chip cookies they have in the café. Moyle has grown up with cooks and he said their family dinners always include critique of the meal and how it could be improved.

“Even when my mom and Joe would give in and buy dinner rather than make it there would be a critique. The meat in this two-dollar burrito is lacking? You don’t say!” Moyle said.

Moyle works at Dish Café and Catering side by side with his mom and has gained a great deal of respect for her. He has witnessed firsthand what a hard worker she is and how she puts her heart and soul into her café and the food she serves.

Nancy Horn’s son, Jacob Moyle (left), is also an employee at Dish Café and Catering. He and cook, Cory Cox prepare the kitchen for lunch hour Monday morning. Moyle and Cox work as a team to get the kitchen stocked and ingredients prepared for their lunch menu.

“What I respect most is the devotion she has to our current location. She finds joy working near the hospital and helping people and their loved ones who are going though the hardships of risky surgeries, cancer treatment, and exedra. She’s so caring and I believe people sense that about her, I’ve lost count of how many people have opened up to her. She is able to touch a person’s life in a way many cannot. I can’t put into words how beautiful it is,” Moyle said.

A big turning point in Dish Café and Catering is when they were selected to be on the Food Network show, “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives”. There were 40 restaurants recommended and they narrowed it down, mainly by which restaurants made their food from scratch. Horn spent hours on the phone and had to go through every single recipe she serves on her menu. Finally, it was narrowed down to four things and by the time Guy Fieri and the rest of the “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” crew arrived they had to have everything made four different times and ready to go on trays. The crew was there for 28 hours and it was only a six-minute segment on television.

“It was very wacky, but the crew is awesome. I love, love, loved his people. They’re great,” Horn said.

This was not Horn’s only Food Network opportunity. Her breakfast quiche was also featured in Food Network Magazine.

Nancy Horn checks to see if her quiche are cool enough to be cut and served before lunch hour. Her breakfast quiche was featured in Food Network Magazine as one of the best breakfasts in America.

“The food section of the paper said we’re looking for the 50 best breakfasts in America and we want you to tell us three great breakfast places in Reno. So we were submitted and we won,” Horn said.

The spotlight and fame did not end there for Horn. She is currently airing short cooking segments, for DaVita, a kidney and dialysis company, on KRNV TV 4. They were looking for a new way to advertise kidney dialysis and knew that people who have kidney problems are also at risk for diabetes and all of these things are diet related.

“They were like who do we know who’s a good teacher who makes really healthy things? Nancy. So they called me and said do you want to do this? Of course, because I want to be on TV. Why? Because I want to help people take an ingredient and make it into something not cut open a box,” Horn said.

Dish Café and Catering is rounding its 10^thyear and Horn says it’s continuing to grow and she still loves every minute of it. She is also still actively involved in her café and does not feel that because she is the owner she is able to sit back and watch as her employees do the work. She runs the register, cleans tables, answers the phone, and is back in the kitchen.

Nancy Horn lifting homemade chocolate chip cookies and speaking with a client on the phone before the busy lunch hour Monday. Horn is very involved in her restaurant and is not only the owner, but her own employees. There is nothing her employees do that she doesn’t’t do in the café.

“You can’t control everything, but what you can do is you can do your job the best that you can do, you can get your employees to do the best job they can do, not just for you, but for your customers,” Horn said.

Horn sincerely believes in having fun with the people she works with, so they have pizza days, they cheer, sing songs, and dance as they work. Mel Wade has been working with Horn for the past two years and has enjoyed being apart of the fun environment that Horn provides.

“She brings such a lively energy to this space and she really has the heart for this and it comes out in everything she does,” Wade said.

It took Horn years to finally get her childhood dream up and running, but her passion and patients kept her focused on her goals.

“I knew I would have what I have, but I didn’t know when because I just really have felt this is what I want to do. I love teaching, I love cooking and baking, I love writing and I want people to be happy because of these things. I want to help people with these skills, so to me there’s nothing else I would rather do,” Horn said

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Listen to a quick clip of this story below: