If it’s good ol’ home cooked, deep fried, artery-slamming food you’re hankering for, Western Kentucky can fill your bill at any number of eateries, from mom-and-pop grocery store dinners to feed-the-whole-family catfish buffets. So how can a bakery and restaurant specializing in healthful low-fat cuisine survive in Grand Rivers, a hamlet of only 300 that serves as the gateway to the Land Between the Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area?

Quite well, actually.

Nestled behind the Little Chapel of the Lakes wedding chapel, the Lite Side Bakery & Cafe has been serving 37 varieties of lowfat muffins, homemade sourdough bread, sugar-free cakes and pies and complete breakfasts and lunches for five years come August.

Cozy and welcoming, the yellow frame cafe is smack on the main drag, where the town’s cur dog challenges all vehicles for right of way. Live with large, greenery-filled windows, and blooming plants on every table, the restaurant is heavy with the smell of baked-fresh daily bread, and has a menu eclectic enough to tempt even the pickiest palate. Some of its patrons are so regular that they call in "sick" if they can’t make their usual time. One of those, customer Anita Holland, says that thanks to the Lite Side, she can now "eat sweets without guilt."

According to Irene Bryan, who owns the business with her husband Bob, it’s sometimes hard to get in because of the crowds on summer weekends. Boaters from two nearby marinas -- one each on Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake -- will eat breakfast at there and then take a packed picnic lunch from the Lite Side. Health-conscious sailors and retirees are among those who gravitate toward its delicious, low-fat fare. Deep-fried gave our ancestors energy for long days of farm labor, Irene explains. "On us it clogs arteries and turns to fat." She should know, having lost 60 pounds on a reduced fat diet.

Originally from upstate New York, Bob and Irene had lived in San Diego for 20 years during his stint in the Navy and following civil service career. Looking for retirement property, they struck out cross country in a camper, drawn to Kentucky by Rand McNally’s endorsement of Murray as a desirable place to retire. But the beauty and sparse population of the LBL area turned their heads, and they returned to California having purchased a lot with 600 feet of Lake Barkley frontage, planning to retire in 10 years.

Within six months, they’d taken early retirement and moved to the Grand Rivers area for good. "We figured we probably wouldn’t live as long in San Diego’s traffic, crime and smog," Irene recalls. "The weather was gorgeous but way too many people. We used to have to go to Sunday brunch at eight a.m. to beat the crowds."

That was nine years ago. The Bryans then built a waterfront cottage, but were getting "fat and lazy." Since a bout with cancer had ended her career as a stained glass designer, Irene chose to pursue a lifelong love and began baking. She would deliver hot loaves of fresh bread to marina friends via a runabout. Rave reviews inspired the couple to start a bakery, using Irene’s converted low-fat recipes. As her mother was a diabetic, she offered sugar-free products, adding corn meal to cake frosting for the grainy sugar feel. "Quality, texture and visual appeal are all important to making food pleasing," she says, "especially low-fat. It has to taste good."

Folks they were meeting were from 45 to 65 years old, Irene says, and most were watching their weight, so serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at the bakery seemed a natural. Initially, the Lite Side was open six days a week for three meals per day, with the Bryans working nearly all day and night. Overflow crowds from the huge Patti’s 1880s Settlement Restaurant across the street would wander in for dinner. "But when someone has his heart set on a two-inch pork chop," Irene laughs, "a light meal isn’t very attractive."

For the past three years, corporate contracts from Paducah hospitals to serve Lite Side muffins in their cafeterias, as well as contracts from an area gourmet shop and a bookstore, have allowed cafe hours to ease. Now the Lite Side is open from 7 a.m. till 2 p.m., serving breakfast and lunch five days a week, Wednesdays through Sundays. On weekends, two extra helpers join the staff of three -- Irene, Bob and weekday waitress Shannon Hunter. A number of area doctors’ and dentists’ offices and several industrial plants fax orders for both muffins and lunch specials. And a bakers’ dozen assorted mini-muffins in a single stem rose box -- the Muffin Bud Gift Pack -- can be shipped anywhere in the country.

Hospitals are recommending the Lite Side’s low-fat cuisine for heart patients and its sugar-free goodies for diabetics. Fat and calorie content are available for every menu item. Breakfast features include light sausage (less greasy but just as tasty, with 14 grams of fat as compared to the usual 27), Canadian bacon and Egg Beaters, the latter two ingredients in a hearty Farmer’s Casserole, along with potatoes, cheese and chives.

Chicken Enchiladas, Black Bean Burgers or Crab Salad can be daily lunch specials. But by far the Lite Side’s best seller is the Bison Burger, with a mere 3.8 grams of fat, that’s made from buffalo raised locally by the keeper of the LBL herd. And Irene’s bison pot roast the first Sunday of each month always draws a horde of diehard fans.

During winter, which is the water recreation area’s off season, the Lite Side’s corporate muffin deliveries help balance the fact that its weekday clientele can number anywhere from three to 35. One day a few years back, that maximum appeared as half of a convention meeting at nearby Green Turtle Bay resort, presenting a challenge for the small bakery. Turns out that Shannon, four months pregnant at the time, was off that day. Laughing at the memory, Irene says that when Bob saw all those name badges headed for the cafe, he wanted to simply lock the doors.

But the local minister happened to be eating lunch there and rose to the occasion. His wife, who works at the Lite Side on weekends, was babysitting four kids at their home at the time. He raced home and took over child care so she could help with the luncheon onslaught. After the masses were fed, the reverend quipped, "It takes a village to run a bakery!"

That, and one passionate baker. Irene’s day begins around midnight, 1 a.m. at the latest, when she and Buddy, an adopted stray Rotweiller-Labrador Retriever mix "who guards the recipes," walk the 300 steps to the cafe to begin plant-watering, dough-starting, and the baking of sourdough bread and buns, focaccia, muffins, cookies, cinnamon buns, and sugar-free brownies, cakes and pies, until a three o’clock coffee break. As she scuttles about the kitchen, dirty dishes pile up until five, when Bob starts his duties as chief bottle-washer and keeper of the company’s books. On hospital delivery mornings, muffins must be cool and ready to hit the road by five. At 6:45 Shannon arrives to begin serving breakfast at seven.

That schedule would be daunting to most. But to Irene and Bob, who have no children, the Lite Side is their baby. "Our big baby. I like what I’m doing," Irene says. "If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it."

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report.