Judy Lohmeyer may be genetically engineered to cook for the masses.
She enjoys the way food brings together people from diverse backgrounds and opens lines of communication. She enjoys the congenial conversation and laughter that often results. And she especially enjoys preparing the foods that bring the palates pleasure.
Now, she has opened a new business, Eclectic Catering at 7 E. Sixth Ave., in the former 3 Fools Cafe location.
She and her husband, Gary, returned to his old hometown from their home in California last year, after the last of his children graduated from the University of San Diego.
The pair met in 2002, when both were traveling around the country, attending trade shows that featured home-related products. Both were growing tired of being continually on the road.
“Being on the road for 30 years, your suitcase is no longer your friend,” Judy Lohmeyer said with a wry grin.
After they married, she found that she looked forward to evening mealtimes with Gary and his children, when they put away the hassles of the day and sat down together to eat and to talk. A little at a time, others found their way to the Lohmeyer table: single-parent neighbors and their children, friends of Gary’s children, and other neighbors began dropping in for dinner and the fun that came from interaction among generations. The teens might leave when the adults began playing cards after dinner, she said, but often it was only to go pick up friends and bring them back to join the older group.
The ever-changing makeup of the amiable group became like an extended family “from the 10-year-olds to the teenagers to the alleged adults,” she said. Ages differences posed no problem.
“If there are lines there, you put them there in your own mind,” she said.
The arrangement felt natural to Lohmeyer, perhaps because it reminded her of her grandmother’s home, which had been a gathering place when she was growing up in Canada.
Her grandmother grew and preserved her own food and always managed to make it stretch, no matter how many people showed up.
“She could make it happen,” Lohmeyer said. “It wasn’t always a party, but it was an ‘occasion.’”
Lohmeyer apparently inherited her grandmother’s knack for improvisation that could turn a meal for four into a meal for 12.
She put it into practice again when Gary’s mother, the late Elizabeth Lohmeyer, was hospitalized soon after the couple moved to Emporia.
Other family members returned, too, to take turns staying at the hospital, and they went to Judy and Gary’s house nearby for meals. She also took food to her mother-in-law, and later cooked some meals for new friends who’d been hospitalized.
“I’ve always loved to cook, and I’ve always ended up cooking for a lot of people,” she said.
One of Gary’s brothers suggested she open a restaurant here, but the prospect of being married to a restaurant day in and day out held no attraction.
Catering, however, did.
The couple began working on redecorating the former cafe, buying and installing equipment, and making sure that health department standards and licensing were met before they opened to the public. The license became effective on Jan. 1.
“The curtains weren’t even up; we had papers on the windows,” she said. “... Now I own some honkin’ big equipment.”
More equipment and supplies are expected to arrive soon.
“We’re trying to do it a la Kansas — as we can afford it,” Lohmeyer said. “If this doesn’t work, we lose, but nobody else loses.”
The Lohmeyers have eased into the catering business independently, gaining momentum as word spread.
“The response really, really surprised me,” she said. “I had no idea just how efficient (word of mouth) was. It amazed me.”
Lohmeyer has liked what she found here since her initial visit.
“The first time I came back here, we were wandering around, I was like ‘Why did you leave here?’” she said of her initial reaction to Emporia.
She likes the green of the hills, the wide-open sky and the welcoming attitude of the people. It’s been refreshing to hear “please” and “thank you” again and she likes the feeling she gets when “somebody says something so incredibly kind to you.”
Lohmeyer already has established a customer base for meals, hors d’oeuvres and desserts made from scratch and using fresh ingredients — such as apples peeled, cored and sliced by hand — instead of what she calls “gork,” canned foods that may be laced heavily with sugars and preservatives.
“There’s a time and a place for the gork,” Lohmeyer said. But it doesn’t belong in her pies.
She has baked cookies from a favorite recipe of a customer who wanted that favorite-tasting cookie but had no time to make them. She put together a good selection of sugar-free desserts, including eclairs, to serve at Betty Tholen’s 90th birthday anniversary celebration at Presbyterian Manor.
“I’ve learned here that there’s a real market for sugar-free stuff,” Lohmeyer commented.
Some new customers, she said, want to entertain but can’t squeeze out time to prepare a good meal while working a job all day and taking care of family needs, too.
The solution for some has been to hire Eclectic Catering to deliver the food already prepared — breakfast, lunch or dinner — or to bring in a homemade meal the day of the event, with entree and side dishes ready to put in the oven or on the stove to cook fresh before guests arrive. Some customers bring in their own bakeware and containers, she said.
Lohmeyer hopes to broaden the business to include occasional special dinners with fixed menus that will be held at Eclectic Catering headquarters.
The store’s equipment is on wheels, and can be moved aside easily to accommodate tables with candles and other amenities for up to 19 people.
She wants to begin that side of the business by the end of summer.
“The first one is going to be for people who will forgive me if I mess up,” she added.