RAVENSWOOD — The ownership of Eats and Sweets has changed hands, and if you hadn't noticed, you will.
Husband-and-wife duo Tim Benedict, 29, and Margaret McCall, 28, bought the cafe, 1636 W. Montrose Ave., in June from the Lacey family, who had opened the eatery a year ago.
"So many people already loved what they were doing," said Benedict. "It's about refocusing."
Where Keith Lacey was primarily a baker, Benedict, who most recently was executive chef at Old Town Pour House in Oak Brook, leans more toward savory foods.
Translation: The "eats" side of the menu will receive as much attention as the "sweets." Coffee will also play a greater role.
Patty Wetli says the owners will focus more on eats than sweets:
Benedict is starting with subtle tweaks, like lightening up the salads. More substantial changes, which McCall promised would all be good, are to come, including an expanded offering of omelets, frittatas and quiche.
The couple, who both originally hail from the Detroit area, also plan to introduce a few family recipes to the mix — perhaps McCall's pineapple upside-down cheesecake and date bars.
"My grandpa is excited to maybe have a sandwich named after him," she said.
The cafe is the first business venture for the pair, who moved to Chicago five years ago.
Though they now live further north in Uptown, they used to rent an apartment at Montrose and Magnolia streets and would frequently walk their dogs west to the Brown Line station and back.
At the time, the Eats and Sweets location was operating as Angel Food Bakery.
"We loved Angel Food," Benedict said. "We would walk past and say, 'It's so cute, it's so cute.' "
Eats and Sweets came up for sale at just the point when Benedict was tiring of his three-hour daily commute to Oak Brook. He realized he was putting in 80 to 100 hours a week — why not do it for himself?
As a bonus, he managed to squeak in under a self-imposed goal of having his own restaurant by the age of 30.
"I made it by six weeks," Benedict said.
McCall will run the front end of the house, while also holding down a full-time job as box office supervisor for the Writers' Theatre in Glencoe.
"I'll be here all day Mondays and Tuesdays and whenever I can steal hours," she said.
Customer service is her specialty, and getting to know the cafe's regulars, as well as all the neighborhood dogs, is her top priority.
Creating community is something that was ingrained into her value system as a child, McCall said.
Her parents were highly active in their neighborhood and heavily involved in organizing activities like block parties, she said.
"The ability to have that here as transplants is very exciting," said McCall.
Benedict's purview is the kitchen, an environment that's been a home of sorts for him since he was a young teen.
He started working as a bus boy for a family restaurant in suburban Detroit and eventually moved up the ladder all the way to line cook.
So when it came time to decide what to do with his life after high school, Benedict naturally gravitated toward a college degree in construction management. The choice seemed more appropriately "adult," he said.
Fate intervened when grad school, in Scotland, came calling for his wife.
The two picked up stakes and moved to Glasgow, where Benedict found a job not in construction but as a chef at a cafe, where he fell for the "humble nature of sandwiches."
Coincidentally, that Scottish cafe switched owners within a week after Benedict was hired. That experience, he said, has stood him well at Eats and Sweets, where all employees were encouraged to stay if they wanted.
"I went through that whole transition process" and learned a number of lessons from the new owner, he said.
He also picked up a taste for certain Scottish foods that he's working on adapting for Eats and Sweets.
Don't worry, it's not haggis. Both Benedict and McCall rave about a sandwich consisting of ham and coleslaw on a baguette, and are figuring out how to translate it and other favorites for Chicagoans.
"We've traveled pretty extensively and food is such a universal language," McCall said. "We want to infuse some of that knowledge into our food while still maintaining 'Midwest is best.' "
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