“Cavender’s Seasoning Thrives with Family in Mix.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 27, 2022, pp. “For 45 Years, Family Tastes Success.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 9, 2015. “Cavender’s Fame Spreads across U.S.” Arkansas Gazette, September 30, 1991, p. 2J.Ĭavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning. “Arkansas Made Seasoning Available Locally and Abroad.” Arkansas Gazette, May 19, 1985, p. “Greek Seasoning Starts World Trek from Harrison.” Arkansas Gazette, April 6, 1978, p. All are buried next to each other in Harrison’s Maplewood Cemetery.Īldridge, Harriet. His wife Katherine died in 1983, and their son Steve died in 2008.
The original family store on Willow in Harrison is used as a small gift shop. By 2015, the company was being run by Lisa Cavender and her sister Cara Wohlgemuth, the granddaughters of Spike Cavender, and had about a ten-person staff working out of a 10,000-square-foot facility in Harrison. In the twenty-first century, S-C Seasoning Company manufactures four to five tons of Cavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning daily for distribution in all fifty states and Canada. In 1991, a salt-free version of Cavender’s Greek seasoning was added to the product line. In May 1988, Cavender’s moved from its original location to a larger facility on Industrial Park Road in Harrison. Finding widespread success, Cavender’s seasoning was sold across the United States and in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. By May 1985, Cavender’s was reportedly shipping about ninety-six percent of its product out of state. By April 1978, the washtub was replaced by a concrete mixer with a stainless steel tub in place of its original iron tub. On September 25, 1978, the S-C Seasoning Company was incorporated. The following September, Cavender entered his product in the Dallas Trade Mart in Texas, where it attracted the attention of sales representatives and food brokers. On July 4, 1970, the Cavenders mixed their first commercial batch and sold it to local stores across northern Arkansas. The name “Spike’s Secret Stuff” was later changed to Cavender’s because the name “Spike’s” was taken by another brand.
Each man chipped in $258 to make their first batch in a washtub on their back porch. On July 4, 1968, Cavender and son Steve sold their first two batches of “Spike’s Secret Stuff” to the only two stores in Harrison at the time. Reportedly, when Cavender was seventeen, his Greek friend in Texas died and willed his seasoning recipe to Cavender.
The chef there cooked with a special seasoning mix, the ingredients of which were a closely guarded secret. While in Texas, Cavender and his brother Lowell had befriended a Greek chef who ran a popular steak house. The store was destroyed by the Crooked Creek Flood on May 7, 1961, but was later reopened in the same place. In the 1950s, Cavender and his wife operated the Well-Worth Dime Store in Harrison at 116 N. The family moved to the Ozark Mountains, where Cavender ran root beer stands and a Honda motorcycle shop. Their son Ronald Stephen (Steve) Cavender was born on November 19, 1943, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Cavender married Katherine Sarita Simmons on January 5, 1941, in Lonoke County. In 1940, Cavender moved to Arkansas, first working in Benton (Saline County). Growing up in Texas and Oklahoma, Cavender led a colorful life as a wild game hunter and entrepreneur. Lester Robert “Spike” Cavender was born in Cooper, Delta County, Texas, on September 3, 1913, the second of five children of William John Cavender and Lula Reedy Pemelton Cavender. By 2015, a third generation of the Cavender family was producing and selling their world-famous Greek seasoning. In May 1988, the company moved from its original location to a larger facility in Harrison. Since 1978, Cavender’s All Purpose Greek Seasoning has been manufactured and sold by the S-C Seasoning Company, Inc. For many years, the seasoning was shared only with their friends and family until they began selling it in 1969. It was adapted from a recipe by a Greek friend of Cavender’s who was a chef. Lester “Spike” Cavender of Harrison (Boone County) created Cavender’s All-Purpose Greek Seasoning with his son Ronald Stephen Cavender in the late 1960s.
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