For four years Nancy Knoblock has run a successful restaurant in the heart of Indiana’s Amish Country but the commute began to get longer and longer for the Schoolcraft resident. So she sold the business to one of the women working with her and made plans to open a new restaurant in downtown Kalamazoo.
Starting in a location at 230 Kalamazoo Mall that she describes as little more than a white box, Knoblock has been working for the past month to add a shabby chic dash to the space scheduled to open to customers March 12 if all goes as planned with the coming inspections.
During the lunch hours, patrons will order their meal at the counter and find a seat or take it to go. On the menu are salads, sandwiches, wraps and quiches. The menu items were popular at her first restaurant, plus a few new touches have been added. Specials will include comfort food like chicken pot pies.
One of the specialties of
Garden Gate Cafe will be cupcakes, something that brought customers into the Shipshewana eatery. Cupcakes come in four sizes: Baby, Junior, Classic and Daddy. They often are favorites when offered at baby or wedding showers, Knoblock says.
"We’ve done a lot of cupcakes for for weddings," Knoblock says. "People use them as wedding cakes."
Besides meals for the downtown crowd, Garden Gate cafe will offer catering service, special parties, and the restaurant will be available after hours for gatherings of 75 to 100 people. During the day, the 2,100-square-foot space seats 50.
Although staffing still is being determined, Knoblock estimates that she will employ 12 people part-time as the business gets rolling.
Not only does Knoblock have prior restaurant experience, but she and her husband, Doug, have turned the farm they live on into an event destination. They rent out the space at Friendship Farm typically for one day over the weekend. Already it's booked for eight weekends this summer, nearly the maximum for the season.
The farm and restaurant with catering, parties and more is a second career for the former social worker. Her husband formerly worked at Western Michigan University and now keeps the books. The two of them have wanted to locate a business in Kalamazoo for awhile.
"Downtown Kalamazoo was where we wanted to be," Knoblock says.
Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave
Source: Nancy Knoblock, Garden Gate Cafe
Garden Gate Cafe, 230 S. Kalamazoo Mall, is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. "If there's a need, I could see myself opening at 7 or 8 a.m.
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