From Scratch
Duo Cooks Up LuLu

Their futures converged in the Culinary Arts Program at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Sarah Jonas was a university dropout, starting anew. Cameryne Roberts was a refugee from corporate life, in search of something more fulfilling. A partnership began that led to a trendy, thriving restaurant-bar in Bay View. Rooted in the neighborhood, it’s the sort of eclectic joint where everyone fits in, whether you’re a hipster, a working person, a grandmother or a professional in a suit.

Far from what you see today when you walk in, however, LuLu, 2261-2265 S. Howell Ave., began as a long shot on a shoestring. It wasn’t even supposed to be a restaurant.

“We actually needed a base for our catering business,” Jonas says. “We spent a year looking at different spots for rent or for sale, until we stumbled across this place. It had been a George Webb’s. Then it was a family restaurant that lasted about six months.” The space was vacant again when Jonas and Roberts snapped it up in 2001.

   

Cameryne Roberts (left) and Sarah Jonas began their successful partnership in the Culinary Arts program at MATC.

It had all the right equipment, and the rent was cheap. “So we said why not try opening it up and see what happens,” Jonas says. “If it flew, it flew. If not, we’d have a commercial kitchen for our catering.”

“We were still intending to focus a lot more on catering, but it just took off,” Roberts says. “People were coming to us instead of us going to them.” To decorate and furnish their new enterprise, the two emptied their apartments and their savings accounts. Their only financing was credit cards.

Family members donated knickknacks. Artist friends supplied paintings to show on a rotating basis. Friends in the restaurant business pitched in with advice and encouragement.

The first few months were a labor of love with the emphasis on labor. “When we opened, it was just Sarah and me,” Roberts says. “I would cook for a while, she would wait tables, and then we’d swap. And we’d be there until 11 at night doing dishes.”

It was grinding work, but paid dividends in the form of lasting new relationships. “Looking back on that time,” Roberts reminisces, “we met so many people who lived in the neighborhood. We made a lot of really great friends."

Friendships among culinary students is a common theme in the LuLu story. The friendship between Jonas and Roberts was cemented in culinary school. Jonas had worked in restaurants while majoring in history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She liked the “front of the house” (waiting tables and tending bar) so much that she left UWM for MATC to learn the “back of the house” (cooking and the business side). Jonas earned her associate degree in hospitality management, only to realize she didn’t care for hotels. So she embarked on a second associate degree in culinary arts.

Roberts, meanwhile, had earned her bachelor’s degree in English from UWM and spent four years in a corporate job.

“The atmosphere really wasn’t for me; I didn’t enjoy it.” Realizing how much she loved cooking as a hobby, she decided to make it her new career, working at several restaurants, like Jonas, before starting culinary training at MATC.

They had been friends for a couple years before both ended up in the Culinary Arts program. Jonas was a year ahead in school. “She kind of inspired me to go into cooking as a career and go to school for it,” Roberts says. “You can always get a cooking job; it’s a matter of where do you want to be? Do you want to be doing burgers with an onion on top, or do you want to be doing something interesting?”

“At cooking school at MATC, you get a nice foundation to start with, and then you can expand on that in whatever direction you want,” Jonas says.

The pair first got together as business partners when a mutual friend asked Jonas to cater a party for her, and she didn’t think she would be able to do it alone. “And I asked Cammie if she would be interested in making some money.” The party turned out a success, and so did the working relationship.

“We realized we worked really well together and have the same ideas about cooking,” Roberts says. “So we started doing catering for friends, and then word kind of spread.”
 

‘Funky Fresh’

Asked to quantify what has made their cooking so popular, Jonas and Roberts don’t have a slogan. Groping toward one, Jonas calls it “funky fresh.” “Fresh definitely is key,” Roberts agrees. “It’s an eclectic mix of cooking styles – flavorful and unusual. For example, you can’t find a Mediterranean steak pita anywhere else in the city.”

“You try not to be stagnant,” Jonas says. “We use different spices from different cuisines, with a really strong emphasis on fresh ingredients and making everything from scratch. You shouldn’t have to add a lot of ketchup to make a sandwich taste like something. It should have a distinctive flavor that stands on its own.” 

They started the café with an all-chalkboard menu of six sandwiches and three salads that changed every week. After six months, they took stock of what had sold and what hadn’t and created a core menu. "We've added a few things over the years like the ciabatta pizza appetizers and the breads and spreads appetizers, which had been very popular in our catering,” Roberts says. “Where we really have fun is with the weekly specials. We do two sandwiches and a salad every week and get to play around with some different ingredients.”

In 2003, with their client base outgrowing the original café, Jonas and Roberts decided to expand. Now with a track record to support bank financing, they were able to buy their building and begin conversion of the bookstore next door. The plan was to transition LuLu into a restaurant-bar. They wanted a continuation of the warmth and eclectic atmosphere, but with more of a night-time feel.

As with the launch of the original café, the partners invested lots of sweat equity and called in markers from friends and family. They hired tradespeople from among their regulars. Jonas herself headed up the demolition phase (“I love ripping stuff apart!”). One of her nephews did all the painting. Roberts’ boyfriend, a contractor, procured carpenters. “After a while in this business, you just know all these friends, and they want to see you succeed,” Jonas says. “It’s really amazing how people come together.”

The result, opened in February 2004, is an expansive, airy, 90-seat, bistro-style space that would fit right in on the East Side. But Jonas and Roberts have no plans to move LuLu there or anywhere else anytime soon, as sometimes happens when establishments achieve this kind of success.

“We’re neighborhood people,” Jonas says. “This is always going to be a neighborhood restaurant. It’s such a cool neighborhood, we can’t think of anyplace else we’d want to be.”

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