SMITHFIELD, Ky. — Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is highlighting Kentucky small businesses each week in his role as ranking member on the U.S. Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship. He said highlighting a small business from their state each week is a tradition for both Democrats and Republicans who serve in leadership roles on the committee. 

What You Need To Know

  • Our Best Restaurant in Smithfield was named a Senate Small Business of the Week 

  • Naming a Small Business of the Week is a tradition for Senators in leadership roles on the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee 

  • The restaurant specializes in “good country-style cooking” combined with “friendly and efficient service” 

“I think it is important because people have heard of Toyota or General Motors or Ford, but they maybe haven’t heard of the mom and pop bakery in small town Kentucky,” Paul said. “It takes a lot of work in a small town with a small business to make a living and to make a profit.” 

One of the businesses Paul’s office has highlighted is the family-run Our Best Restaurant in the small town of Smithfield.

“Good country-style cooking” combined with “friendly and efficient service.” That’s how Our Best Restaurant advertises itself. 

A look at the menu at Our Best Restaurant. (Spectrum News 1/Julia Benbrook)

Their menu specialties include fried chicken, pork chops and homemade desserts. Those items, combined with their business model, seem to attract quite the crowd. 

“We come here quite often as a group, but we also com here as individual families cause it’s so good,” said a customer who drove about an hour from Lawrenceburg just for lunch. “On Sundays we’ll wait to get in.” 

The business has been in the family for three generations. 

“Using Kay, my stepmother’s recipes from her mother and grandmother, they opened the little Our Best Restaurant down the street in August of 1990,” said owner Kenny Way. “The original menus were on the Our Best flower sacks. Our Best was the premiere flour mill across the street.” 

The restaurant was started by the late Kenneth Way and his wife Kay. Now his son Kenny Way, grandson Aric Way and his wife Brittany Way work to build on the original vision while keeping the founder’s motto in mind. 

“Someone asked my dad one time, Kenneth, what do you know about the restaurant business? He said I really don’t know anything. I remember him saying, all I know is I’m in the people business, I just happen to make food,” Kenny Way said.

Aric Way, the third generation to run Our Best Restaurant, started helping out when he was 13. He believes that prioritizing the people who walk in the door is the best recipe for success. 

“I enjoy just sitting down and talking to people,” Aric Way explained. “Pulling up a chair and talking to them.” 

The team at Our Best Restaurant tells me the fourth generation already enjoys learning around the restaurant.

10-year-old Malin Way, Aric Way’s youngest daughter, said if you’re from out of town she thinks the homemade pies are well worth the drive. 

“Everybody loves them!” Malin Way said.