By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Jensen family has brought back the famous Professor’s barbecue sauce along with all the other sandwiches that made the restaurant a Hays staple.

Professor’s first opened in 1976 and has had multiple owners.

Amy and Mike Jensen have owned Professor’s since 2003, but handed it off to another operator to spend more time with their family.

The Professor’s Steakhouse and Saloon, under that previous owner, closed about three years ago.

Jensen had tried to sell Professor’s for several years as they were focusing on their farm, honey and mushroom growing business.

Mike has long grown mushrooms in the family’s basement for their own use. These include morels and a variety of oyster mushrooms.

The family decided they would expand the mushroom operation to the Professor’s basement and use Professor’s as retail location for both their mushrooms and raw honey.

The Jensens are the only licensed mushroom growers in the state of Kansas.

The family decided they needed to do more with the restaurant than just a honey and mushroom outlet, so they decided to offer sandwiches again at Professor’s Classic Sandwich Shop & More, 521 E. 11th.

You can still order the some of the same traditional sandwiches, like the Panacea, which is billed as curing all ills, or the Regulator or Motivator.

Of course you can order Professor’s famed barbecue sauce on the side of any sandwich for 40 cents. The Jensens hope to eventually bottle the sauce for sale.

Salads are also on the menu, all between $6-$9.

Amy said the restaurant is committed to using as much locally sourced, fresh ingredients in their food as possible. She hopes to incorporate some foods from the Hays Market this summer in the menu items.

“We don’t serve any fried foods and we use clean label meats and cheeses,” Mike said.

They do not serve soft drinks. Instead you can order a house-made honey lemonade with a hint of lavender. The drink is made with Jensens’ own honey.

The restaurant serves a mushroom soup, which is made with Jensen farm mushrooms, and the Jensens also serve their own mushrooms on their salads.

Honey cookies that are baked by Amy’s mom are served with each meal.

The restaurant is defiantly a family affair. Amy and Mike’s daughter, Elissa also works at the restaurant and their son, Ethan, plans to attend NCK Tech culinary school in the fall.

The family got started in the bee business because Mike wanted pollinators for a garden. He struck gold when a local farmer offered up a barn full of beekeeping equipment for free.

“It changed our whole lives and how we look at everything,” Mike said.

Even though the Jensens are honey producers, they still see their honey as a finite resource and monitor its use at the restaurant.

The prevalence of chemicals in our environment, the use of herbicides and urbanization have all taken a toll on bee populations, Mike said.

Mike became interested in mushrooms at a young age. He started hunting mushrooms at about age 7 or 8.

Mike championed mushrooms for their health benefits, saying they are a good, complete sure of protein, good for your cholesterol and have anti-inflammatory properties.

“It is something the body can break down,” he said.

Although Mike has only been selling his mushrooms on a small scale, he is reaching out to regional markets and chefs to expand.

He said he hoped to eventually to have a truck leaving Professor’s once a week to distribute mushrooms across the state.

The Jensens sell their fresh mushrooms for $5 per quarter pound and dried mushrooms for $5 per ounce.

Honey sells for $10 per pound.

The sandwich shop is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

The venue is also available for rental for private parties.