Our New (ad)Venture
Wow – construction of our new beautiful café is moving along really fast. Hello everyone! My name is Jami, one of the sisters who own this new venture. My sister Kelly and I are hopping everywhere trying to pull everything together for our Grand Opening. We are shooting for the beginning of June to open our doors.
When we first came up with this crazy idea to open a café, we started out planning to simply offer great coffee, some sandwiches and Italian gelato. Over many months of development of our ideas and those of the consultants we have working with us; we are now opening a full blown restaurant.
We added a wine bar, a grill with fryers and lots more. It has been quite an eye opening experience to say the least – exhilarating and totally scary all at once! I have been blown away by the amount of paperwork alone. I am so glad one of Kelly’s best attribute and skills is organization. She keeps us on track, including our father who is the general contractor.
Yesterday, we were all standing at the jobsite while the sheetrockers were doing their magic, watching the café literally come to life before our eyes. We looked at each other, and without a word said, we all knew what the others were thinking; No Turning Back Now!
We will keep you posted on the construction progress, so check back to our site often. We would love everyone to follow along and become as excited as we are to see this creation of a charming café which we hope folks will find to be a comfortable, fun place to be. I will chat with you later! Jami
2 Responses to “Our New (ad)Venture”
By A friendly customer on Nov 28, 2008
Hello! I couldn’t find another way to contact you via your website or here, so I hope this is okay.
I’ve been curious about your cafe since I frequently pass it on Foster. the neighborhood really needs a nice cafe, and I was excited because I can bike to it.
I finally got a chance to go last week. It’s beautiful! And your hours are fantastic. Because I want this to be the kind of place i can come again and again, and because I want to invite my friends, I’d like to ffer some initital impressions:
First, please install a bike rack up front (the City of Portland will install them for free: http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=34813&a=58384). If my bike isn’t safe, I can’t come very often!
Your menu looks great. I look forward to trying more of it! Could you add a veggie burger option/substitution so my husband can eat a burger at the cafe, too? Also, the sauce that comes with the tots sounds great: garlic & mustard sounds exciting and bold. What I got was more like tartar sauce w/ a mayonnaise base. Was that intentional?
I’m thrilled you have WiFi! And I love the comfy area: it’s the perfect place to settle in and read a book while sipping an italian soda. Windowshades would really help defend against the blinding afternoon sun, though. A couple of small sidetables for the comfy area would also be useful, since I was nervous to put my food and drink on the floor. I wasn’t thrilled about the big screen TV, but I was happy the sound was kept low. However, I would have preferred music.
Also, this is a small matter, but I have never been offered a receipt for any of my orders. I think offering a receipt should be a default, but the counterperson should at least ask if I want a receipt.
I hope you hear these suggestions with the enthusiasm and hope I have for your new business. Thanks so much for offering a great cafe option on Foster!
By admin on Nov 29, 2008
Hi to our “Friendly Customer” !!!
My name is Jami, one of the owners of Le Sorelle Cafe. My sister and I really appreciate your comments.
I will talk to the building owners about the bike rack. Several of our employees ride bikes as well and many of them along with other customers have requested the same thing about having a rack where they can be comfortable about seeing their bikes while they dine. Our father actually was the general contractor on the building and hopefully can convince them to get a hold of the city of Portland to install them. As a matter of fact, Mayor Elect Sam Adams held a meeting at our cafe recently and he is a huge fan of biking.
About the receipt thing…you are totally correct, they should’ve asked you if you wanted yours. My sister Kelly is the manager and she is working diligently to teach our servers to handle everything - but people do goof up sometimes, however I will make sure they realize the importance of this.
The dipping sauce…hmmm…not sure on that one. We have had as most restaurants do, a turnover of servers and cooks, but we think we have a great team in place now. I am on it.
Lets see, what else? Oh, the soft seating. I love those chairs!!! In fact my sister found the round one and I designed the entire cafe around the color. Unfortunately for the winter we will be removing them to add more indoor seating since we can no longer have the outdoor seats available. I am sorry, I love to go sit there as well. As soon as the weather permits, we will bring it all back though! Or maybe we can figure out a way to at least fit in one piece still?
A few things you may be interested in the coming months are we will be having a “old movie” night with our server Andy narrating. We have been asked many times about more and more vegetarian items to be added to our menu. I will propose your idea about veggie burgers to our chef and my sister. Have you seen our fliers on the monthly wine dinners? They are a blast if I do say so myself…and I don’t even get to attend, just serve!
Anyway, each month is a new theme and innovative menu to accompany great wines (sometimes it is a beer tasting as well).
We look forward to having you come in and enjoy. Please feel free to email me about any ideas or suggestions you have, I really appreciate it. We want more than ever to survive this adventure and bring something special to the Lents area…it is really needed there.