Todd County Standard - Kentucky Press Association

BY ELIZABETH JOHNSON
TODD COUNTY STANDARD
CLIFTY
NORTHERN TOWN HAS CHARM, GOOD PEOPLE
With most of Todd
County’s industries and businesses
located in the southern
part of the county, Clifty, a
small community northeast of
Elkton, doesn’t have as much
going on. But residents are
grateful for what it does have.
The breaking news in the
town? An ATM coming to the
United Southern Bank
branch.
Boasting the only Todd
County post office north of
Highway 68-80, Clifty is
home to Clifty Café and
Patty’s Place, not to be confused
with Patti’s 1880s
Settlement, as it often is.
“We tell them, ‘Honey,
you don’t need a reservation
here,’” said Patty Mansfield,
owner of Patty’s Place for
eight years, who receives
many calls for the Grand
Rivers restaurant. “We got a
call for a bridal party once, so
we said, ‘I don’t mind you
coming, but we’re just a little
(gas) station with subs and
sandwiches.’”
With the nearest grocery
store 20 miles away, Patty’s
Place works to keep the
necessities in stock.
“We try to keep whatever
they ask for, if they’re our regulars,
we try to keep it for
them,” said Tracy Enlow, who
works at the gas station-convenience
store combo. “It is
20 miles to get a loaf of bread
if we don’t have one.”
For both of those locally
owned family businesses,
there is joy for the owners in
serving their loyal customers.
That’s why Kent and Susan
Griffin bought and reopened
Clifty Park is the former site of the Clifty Elementary School.
Clifty Café on Jan. 15, 2011.
“The community needed
something, somewhere to
eat, a place for the men to do
all of their sitting, talking and
chatting,” said Susan Griffin,
who believes the restaurant
has filled that void.
Serving a buffet from
5:30 to 7 on Friday nights,
Griffin said many families stop
by to eat, though most of her
business comes from her early
morning patrons.
Opening at 6 a.m. Monday
through Saturday, the restaurant
quickly fills with the smell
of sausage and bacon and the
chatter of men who sip their
coffee while crowded around
a long table at the front.
“It’s a morning gossip
group,” said Josh Griffin, one
of the younger men at the
table. “It’s like a news channel.
You always know the
weather. You always know
what’s going on.”
While conversation shifts
from the weather to community
happenings to politics,
Griffin said the most important
thing is knowing that
those men along with the rest
of Clifty’s residents will do
anything to help each other
out.
“It’s a small town. If anybody
needs anything, anybody
will help you out. Ninety
percent of the people, if you
needed a vehicle, would tell
you to go on and take it
because the keys are in it,” he
joked, though his words carry
truth of the trustworthiness of
the people who live there.
It is those people who
brought Gene Douthit and his
wife from Georgia to the
small community in
September of 2005. Deciding
it was time to retire, he and
his wife sold their business
and farm and took root in
Clifty.
“A friend of mine lives in
Paducah so we started looking
around here,” said Douthit.
“The people are so nice.”
Douthit is one of the many
men you can find around the
Clifty Café table at breakfast
and again for a bite at lunch
before it closes at 1 p.m.
“My wife quit cooking
since we moved up here,”
said Douthit with a laugh.
“She retired, too.” Harold
Ray Rager, an Allegre boy
who married a Clifty girl, has
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22 DISCOVER TODD COUNTY Todd County Standard