OverEasy Morning Café, which opened in 2019 on Erie Street in Kent, is bucking the trend of most restaurants and roughly tripling its space as it moves to the old depot on Franklin Avenue that most recently was home to Treno Ristorante.
Chad Zemba, who co-owns OverEasy with his wife, Shannon, said they hope to open in the new location around Christmas.
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Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which has generally been a challenge for restaurants, OverEasy has been expanding its reach over the past 18 months, according to Shannon.
“We’re super busy,” she said. “We’re super busy to the point where on weekends we’re having two-hour waits. It’s a very small, quaint restaurant.”
Shannon said there was only room for 13 tables at OverEasy’s Erie Street location.
Managing the new location will beShannon’s daughter, Rayanne Anderson, who said she’s planning to stay in the family business for a while.
“This is what I want to do now and be part of the family business aspect of it,” she said. “And then it gives me more room to grow here as well rather than where it was.”
Anderson recently finished a stint at Twin Lakes Veterinary.
“I came back here a couple of months ago, but I started waitressing when we first opened,” she said.
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Chad said neitherthe kitchen nor theseating area on Erie Street isbig enough anymore.
“We just outgrew that place, by far,” he said.
Shannon said OverEasy’s pancakes took up real estate on the griddle pretty quickly.
“I mean when three tickets come into the kitchen andwe have a 24-inch cooking surface — I mean our pancakes are 13 inches big, so they don’t fit,” she said.
Chad said business was a little slow last winter at the peak of COVID-19, but overall business has been good.
The couple said they began offering take-out dinner and eventually breakfast orders and managed to gain some new customers during the pandemic, and they also didn't have as much trouble with food supplies like some other establishments, perhaps because a lot of their orders were for things like milk, flour and bread as opposed to chicken wings.
Shannon said the seating space will nearly triple with the move.
“It’s like 1,200 square feet up on Erie Street, and I don’t even know what it is here — I just know we’re going from 40 seats to almost 100,” she said.
The couple isn’t planning to make major changes to the new location at 152 Franklin Avenue, which has been a restaurantfor years as The Pufferbelly and then, since around 2017, as Treno Ristorante.
The restaurant will continue to serve fresh breakfast and lunch food but will take advantage of the bar to expand its menu a bit.
“We’re going to do milkshakes and have a coffee bar,” she said. “We’re actually going to collaborate with Scribbles. We get all our coffee from them now. So we're going to collaborate with her and get some of her recipes and have her teach us a little bit of makes things.”
But she said OverEasy is not going to become a coffee shop. The bar is intended for people who want good coffee, or a milkshake,with their meals.
The restaurant will continue to offer fresh breakfast and lunch fare, but Shannon said they hope to eventually open for dinner, as well. They said they’d expand both the breakfast and lunch offerings once the new location opens up.
“As soon as we can hire more people, we want to open for dinner,” she said. “We’ve got a really good crew right now for breakfast and lunch.”
She said around 20 people work at the restaurant now, and they may grow to around 30 or 40 employees as they expand their hours to include dinner.
Once the restaurant opens around Christmas, the hours will be Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, said Shannon.
In addition to a largely expanded space, Chad said he and Shannon are excited to be in the historic building, which is one of the most iconic structures in Kent.
“It’s exciting because we looked at this building before for a third restaurant earlier this year, and it didn’t pan out,” he said. “In the meantime, OverEasy was just getting busier and busier.”
Do you have a business or healthcare story you'd like to share?Reporter Bob Gaetjens can be reached at 330-541-9440, bgaetjens@recordpub.com and @bobgaetjens_rc.
