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Owner, chef want to get to know every customer’s name
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Fourth Street Cafe owner Evan Egli outside his business.
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Fourth Street Cafe chef Stephen Grant prepares flaming entree in the kitchen of the Salem eatery Thursday.
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Fourth Street Cafe owner Evan Egli, left, and Chef Stephen Grant in dinging room at the Salem Eatery. The restuarant recently opened WD LEWIS
A new restaurant offers food and friendship.
SALEM — Imagine a restaurant where the owner and the chef want to get to know you.
Welcome to The Fourth Street Cafe.
The cafe kicked off last week and is now into its first formal week of operations.
And business is good, according to owner Evan Egli of Salem.
He said Thursday: “It was just something that I always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to own and operate my own restaurant.”
He attended the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute for two years and worked at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Columbus for a year.
And now, at 24, he’s running his own restaurant.
Stephen Grant of Columbiana, the executive chef, said he and Egli are opposites.
“We balance each other very well,” he said.
While Egli takes care of the finances, “I went into the pastry-chef end of the business,” Grant said.
Their idea is to offer slightly upscale meals with really good food and good portions with good prices.
And, like the theme of the television show “Cheers,” the men want to get to know the names of their customers.
“I want people to come in and sit down and relax,” Egli said.
And there is a family feeling. While talking, Egli was holding his son, Tyler, who was clutching an empty cream pitcher. A bit later, Tyler was being watched by his mother, Tiffany, while an action Elmo doll from Sesame Street waved a pizza.
The Egli family had run a now-closed pizza franchise on Southeast Boulevard. The Fourth Street Cafe is in a building that had been a convenience store and a couple of restaurants. The restaurant was renovated, a lobby was added, and “there’s a whole new kitchen out back,” Egli said.
The menu consists of some classics and some items you might not expect.
Appetizers include mozzarella sticks and battered mushrooms, but also hummus with grilled pita bread or fried green beans.
Dinners range from chicken or steak marsala to pork chops, grilled salmon and, of course, meatloaf.
Egli pointed out that other fine- dining sites in the city such as The Timberlanes and the Green Rose Bistro have closed. He said the turnout for his restaurant has been good.
The restaurant is alcohol-free, except for the cooking. Grant said that he does use real wine in cooking — but the alcohol is burned off during the preparation.
Customers can truly have their food made to order, the men said.
Grant said the restaurant even makes its own french fries.
“We went through 150 pounds of potatoes in three days,” he said.
The beef is bred locally without chemicals.
Grant also is high on the opportunities he has to offer goodies such as bananas foster, layer cakes and strawberry shortcakes.
“The food is going to talk for itself,” Grant said.