What started as an ordinary family dinner became a night of plotting and planning, scheming and devising, on what it would be like if we owned our own restaurant...

Our parents home-schooled us for high school and always encouraged us to learn our lessons through living life. Everything was a learning experience, from community theatre, to dissecting eyeballs on the kitchen table, to looking at pond scum under a microscope...so, when the topic came up at dinner one night, we all thought, “What better life experience than opening a restaurant?” Erik was 13, Nora was 15, and Veronika was 17. Our dad, Ray, already owned his own business called, Fibrenew, fixing leather and vinyl, and our mom owned her own business, making glass beads and jewelry. Veronika had already been working at a cafe called, Cafe’ Latte, and the owner wanted to sell her business so she could spend more time with her family. So, that fateful night, we made the decision, and, only a few weeks later, we were signing the papers. As fate would have it, we opened our doors on April Fool’s Day in 2004. With our college money invested in the business, we knew we had to really make something of this. We all worked hard, with mom and dad flipping omelettes on busy Saturday mornings. After awhile, business started picking up, and it was more than we could handle, so we slowly started hiring more and more employees. Nora found she had a knack for baking and, waving her spatula in the air, started whipping up muffin tops, cakes, bars and anything else she could fit in a pan. We added our own, homemade Bakery line called, “My Sister’s Bakery”. Not long after that, we heard about this amazing Italian dessert called Gelato and decided to add that. Sometime later, we thought we should add just one more thing, and we signed up to be on a waiting list for a liquor license. Three years later, we were bumped up to number one and received our long awaited license. We hired an amazing manager, Ellen, and have an awesome team of employees. We’ve watched people come and leave our staff and move on to different countries, states, interests, and passions and we are proud of all of them. Now, in 2008, our business is booming, our family is growing, and our bond is stronger than ever. Over the past four years, we have made friends with our customers, learned what works and what doesn’t for running a business, and strengthened the love and trust in our family. The past four years have been demanding, overwhelming, and sometimes unmanageable, but, above that, have been the most inspiring, significant, and extraordinary years of our lives...

Aside from that, we’re just your average family.