By day, Deborah Piasecki is a specialeducation aide at Rogers High School.
By night, she’s in graduate school to complete her master’s degree in teaching with a special-education emphasis.
And in every spare moment, she’s at My Cafe in Lowell, working with daughter Chelsea on the project they started together a year and a half ago - running a restaurant.
The family moved from Detroit to their dream home on Beaver Lake 10 years ago.
“We came from Detroit to visit friends, and on the way home, I said, ‘Sell the house,’” Piasecki remembers.
Fast forward to 2011, when Chelsea called her mom and told her that the restaurant where she worked was going to close. “Can we do it, Mom?” Piasecki remembers her asking. “We can try” was Deborah’s response.
So far, so good, Piasecki says.
The restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch, although breakfast is served all day.
Most popular in the mornings, Piasecki says, are omelets, particularly the Western omelet with ham, cheese, peppers and onions, served with picante sauce, and a new meat lovers’ omelet, which she says is a hit with early morning customers on their way to outdoor jobs.
Omelets are priced from $5.50 to $9, and the menu also includes hotcakes, french toast, biscuits and gravy, breakfast sandwiches and “some of the finest cinnamon french toast available.”
Burgers are the lunchtime best-sellers, Piasecki says, because they are fresh,pattied when they’re ordered.
Combinations that include cheese and bacon are the most popular, she says, and range in price from $5.50 to $8.50.
Lunch also includes chicken fried or hamburger steak platters, BLTs, club sandwiches, classic grilled cheese, salads, vegetable platters and grilled chicken, nothing priced over $10, Piasecki says.
My Cafe offers a variety of specials, too. A different special is served every day, priced at $6.95, and “can be anything from our homemadelasagna to fried chicken,” she says. The entree comes with a side dish, a dinner roll or biscuit and a drink.
The restaurant also offers two monthly specials, onebreakfast and one lunch, for $5. For January, the breakfast special will be two eggs, potatoes, choice of bacon or sausage and choice of toast or a biscuit and gravy. The lunchspecial will be a chicken fried steak sandwich with chips.
“We try to do as much fresh and scratch as we can,” Piasecki says, “and it’s all homestyle.”
Whats Up, Pages 18 on 01/04/2013