Above: The Bellefonte Cafe has new owners, Dave and Donna Farrar of Brandywine Hundred. Nate Farrar, their son and the cafe's new manager, has been working at the cafe for four years. His girlfriend Elaina Leshock, a server and cook at the cafe, has been working at the restaurant for about a year.
After longtime Bellefonte Cafe owner Donna Rego began to transform her homey resale/antique shop into a cafe focusing on organic vegetarian and vegan meals more than 10 years ago, she laid out her food ideology on the cafe's blog.
"I have a philosophy about food and eating habits and have always shied away from the fast food world," she wrote. "I guess you could say that my fare is 'slow food.'"
As the cafe grew, gaining a loyal following and an alcohol license in the process, the customer demand eventually overtook Rego, who used to be the only person in the kitchen, making just-right meals with the care (and speed) of your grandmother.
Even as she added some help in the kitchen, the joke among regulars was that you had to put your food order in right away, since it might take an hour or two for the plate to land in front of you. Not that they minded. For many, it was part of the charm. Unless your stomach was growling, that is.
And it's not like new customers weren't warned. The menu opened with a welcoming passage that alerted them to tell their waiter or waitress if they were in a hurry, since this certainly wasn't going to be a fast food experience.
Fast-forward to last week when Rego sold her funky cultural hub in tiny Bellefonte to Dave and Donna Farrar of Brandywine Hundred.
The Farrars' son, Nate, a local musician who has worked at the cafe for four years, is now the manager, having absorbed Rego's cooking skills and now armed with the recipes she left him. His girlfriend, Elaina Leshock, has worked at the cafe for about a year and follows a plant-based diet, helping develop new menu items.
And while an outsider could not tell ownership has changed hands based on the restaurant's trademark dishes and eclectic live music schedule, there has been one immediate and recognizable upgrade: the same food comes out a lot faster.
The cafe even has even added an express lunch menu, looking to gain a lunch crowd that might have been scared off by the kitchen's pace in the past.
"People can generally be patient after 20 minutes, especially in a place like this where you can relax. But when it gets to be 40 minutes, you start looking at your watch and in some sense it diminishes the experience and it's all about the customer experience," Dave Farrar says of the reason behind the new kitchen flow, which includes three cooks during busy hours.
As for Rego, a former music promoter for Virgin Records, her more than 18 years at the spot was enough, having opened in the mid-90s as an antique shop before growing it into a cafe, which had a $150,000 renovation in 2010, five years after it began selling alcohol.
For her part, Rego couldn't be happier about who she is passing the cafe off to."I feel like we've kept it in the family," Rego said from Mexico earlier this week, during a well-deserved vacation.
Her Holly Oak home is for sale, but she's unsure what her future holds, although it will probably resemble a semi-retirement. On this day, as she looked out at the Caribbean Sea, she expects to spend a lot more time in Mexico and also in New Jersey where her mother lives.
In addition to quicker food preparation, Nate Farrar, 30, has offered up a few early tweaks that customers can find at the cafe including a few new menu items.
A tofurkey melt made with tempeh bacon, Daiya cheddar, tomatoes, black ground pepper and Vegenaise ($10) is now on the menu, along with a feta spinach omelet ($7.50). All the other favorites, like the sprawling hummus platter ($12), Cuban black bean soup ($7 for a bowl) and Cubano sandwich ($8), are all still on the menu and made the same as they always have -- only faster. A few new craft beers are on their way, too.
He has also added a strong (and free) Wi-Fi signal while his father, a landscape designer, is already thinking about sprucing up the cafe's grounds later this year when warm weather returns. His mother, a school teacher at Sanford School in Hockessin, has already been spotted working in the kitchen, beginning to learn the ropes of the operation in case she needs to fill in here or there.
The cafe's busiest day has remained the same for years: Sunday. That is due to the weekly performances by Betty & the Bullet, an acoustic act that melds Americana, bluegrass and swing music with Michael Davis of Wilmington rockabilly stalwarts The Bullets on guitar, Bethany "Betty Bullet" Bullington on stand-up bass and David Poland gleefully playing his trusty fiddle. Their performances, which usually run from noon to 3 p.m., can fill every one of the restaurant's 35 seats, spilling out onto the cafe's wrap-around porch on warmer days.
Years of working at the cafe on Sundays during Betty & the Bullet sets has led to a musical collaboration between Nate Farrar and Bullington in the form of the upstart Wilmington ska act Big Skull, which matches Bullington's bass playing with with his bluesy growl and razor-sharp songwriting skills.
It's just one of the artistic creations that bubbles out of places like Bellefonte Cafe, where musicians, poets, visual artists and others congregate for hours at a stretch. This time, it just happens to be the cafe's new manager and one of his biggest musical draws. Nate Farrar, who books all the music at the cafe now, says Betty & the Bullet on Sundays is among the long list of things he will not change at the cafe. "They just pack this place," he says.
Above: Former Bellefonte Cafe owner Donna Rego has sold the cafe to the family of a longtime employee, Nate Farrar.
Dave and Donna Farrar had never thought of buying a restaurant before the idea was floated between them and Rego starting a couple of years back. But now, it seems like a natural fit owning the spot where they would come see their son perform years ago when he was a young man just starting out on his musical path.
"It just has a great atmosphere and has a great impact on the community. It's a community area, not just a community restaurant," Dave Farrar says.
And while the restaurant business can be stressful and difficult for even longtime restaurant owners, the Farrars are wholly content with this new unexpected twist in their lives.
You can see it on Donna Farrar's peaceful face as she speaks the words, "I haven't lost any sleep."
IF YOU GO
What: Bellefonte Cafe, 804 Brandywine Blvd., Bellefonte
Upcoming music: Tonight, Nick Driver; Saturday, Jessica Graae; Sunday, Betty & the Bullet; Thursday, Ginny Wilder; Friday, Paul Grey; Jan. 18, Apache Trails.
