Local food artists Jordana and Garrett VanBergen are finalizing plans to buy the longtime home of children’s boutique Lad & Lassie, which closed in February 2020, and convert it into a restaurant and cafe. EvaDean.

Jordana told The Record that EvaDean hopes to open in mid-2023 and will feature a bakery on the right half of the site and a breakfast-lunch-brunch restaurant on the other side.

“It’s a bit scary. This building needs a lot of love,” she said. “It’s a very big project, but we are very excited.”

Although the sale of the building has not yet been completed, a purchase agreement is in the works, according to the VanBergens and a representative of Connor Max LLC, the owner of the property.

Wilmette Village officials said they have not yet received official documentation for EvaDean’s, but are aware of pending sale and restaurant plans.

While EvaDean’s will be the first company to own a restaurant for the VanBergens, Garrett and Jordana have extensive professional culinary experience.

Garrett VanBergen is the executive chef of Evanston Farma farm-to-tavern restaurant open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.

Jordana VanBergen is a Wilmette native and pastry chef. For 10 years, she has worked at Bennison Bakery in Evanston, which is owned and operated by his father, Jory Downer. Her grandfather, Guy Downer, was a baker who bought Bennison’s in 1967. Her grandmother was also a baker. Her name was EvaDean.

Jordana said the couple were looking for places in the area to open their own restaurant and settled there in downtown Wilmette.

“Downtown Wilmette has gotten really cool,” she said. “A lot more than when I was young. … You drive through downtown Wilmette, it’s bustling. There’s a lot more going on there.

A major draw of the building for the VanBergens was the ability to use part of Veterans Park, a small public space adjoining the building to the east, for outdoor dining.

Although use of the park requires formal approval, the Village of Wilmette would also like the building’s occupant to use part of the park, Braiman said.

Garrett VanBergen will be the restaurant-side chef, while Jordana will run the bakery. Garrett’s specialty, she said, is farm-to-table cuisine with specials that rotate with the season.

The VanBergens will also seek to obtain a liquor license from the village in order to serve alcohol – such as wine and cocktails, such as Bloody Marys – with lunch and brunch.

In downtown Wilmette, EvaDean’s will be the third breakfast location, joining Hotcakes at the corner of Wilmette Avenue and Fuel at the north end of the Metra station on Washington Court. The area also includes other bakeries, such as St. Roger Abbey French Organic Patisserie, Panera Bread, and Lawrence Dean’s, as well as incoming Buck Russell’s Bakery and Sandwich Shop.

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Those looking for breakfast or lunch have a new choice in an old building in Cudahy.

La Crema opened in the old Samano building at 3431 E. Plankinton Ave.

Milwaukee residents Gerardo Flores and his sister Claudia Flores began moving the restaurant into the renovated building in November 2021. The siblings hosted a soft opening for La Crema on February 21.

The company name is a Spanish translation of part of the classic French phrase “crème de la crème” which refers to something like the best. Claudia Flores said they used the Spanish version to represent their heritage.

La Crema is open from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and serves breakfast and lunch but not dinner. Claudia Flores said dinner orders are often “more complex.”

A steak and seafood restaurant from North Carolina named Firebirds Wood Fired Grill has made its way to Texas.

The state’s first Firebirds opens February 14, 2022 in North Fort Worth near downtown Alliance near Keller. Much of the northeast corner of 35W and Heritage Trace Parkway is a pile of dirt right now, but HEB has purchased a parcel of land there. A Chuy’s Tex-Mex is already open next to Firebirds.

After opening, the company’s East Coast rapid operators will focus on Collin County, where a Firebirds is slated to open in Plano, near the Frisco border at State Highway 121 and Preston Road.

The company now has 55 restaurants and plans to open four more in 2022.

The restaurant looks familiar – a bit like a Houston, but with more light.

“We felt early on that the Firebirds were a real fit for the customer base here,” Stephen Loftis, vice president of marketing, says of Fort Worth. He calls the restaurant “contemporary-polished”. It’s the kind of place where steaks are served for lunch and dinner, but you can bring your kids.

The most popular dishes on the menu are the lobster and spinach queso ($14.95 all day), wood-grilled salmon ($16.95 lunch, $25.95 dinner) and a rib eye Cajun ($37.95 all day for 16 ounces).

The seven salads on the menu are generously proportioned. Seared Tuna Superfood Salad comes with a dozen pieces of sushi-grade tuna near a bed of spinach and grains dressed in a tangy avocado-lime vinaigrette.

The restaurant also sells seven burgers. The most popular is the Durango burger, an incredibly high stacked sandwich with pepper jack cheese and fried onions. It’s one of many Colorado-themed menu items: Although this restaurant started in North Carolina and is now in Texas, founder Dennis Thompson had a home in Aspen, Colorado, and named several dishes in his honor.

Southwestern au gratin potatoes, made with a smoked tomato cheese sauce, are spicy and creamy. They’re a good match for Cajun rib eye, says Fort Worth chef Sean Martin.

Martin moved to Fort Worth for work and spent most of his career with the Firebirds. He started working for the company as a dishwasher when he was 18. He became sous-chef at this Delaware restaurant, then was promoted to executive chef at two Firebirds in New Jersey, then two more in Pennsylvania. He is just getting to know Fort Worth alongside general manager Michy Cruz, a native of Virginia.

And are these foreigners worried about moving to beef-loving Texas?

No, says Loftis. “We’re just going to bring our A-game,” he says.

Firebirds Wood Fired Grill is located at 2900 Amador Drive, Fort Worth. The second Firebirds in Texas is scheduled to open in late 2022 at 5430 State Highway 121, Plano.

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.

CARTERET – The Carteret Business Partnership recently welcomed The Crab General to the Carteret Mall with a ribbon-cutting ceremony led by Mayor Daniel J. Reiman.

After emigrating from China in 2009 and working in the restaurant business for 10 years, Angel Chen chose to open a restaurant in Carteret with a seafood menu and a family atmosphere,

“Angel chose the name Crab General because a general is a leader and she wants to provide leadership when it comes to good food,” Reiman said.

Chen wanted to open in Carteret because the 5,000 square foot space was perfect for his vision of fun, flashy, yet light nautical decor to serve as the backdrop for his menu.

“I wanted to open a seafood restaurant rather than a Chinese restaurant because there are already so many Chinese restaurants, and I felt there was more need for a good seafood restaurant, so there was a bigger market potential,” Chen said. “We want to organize big family celebrations with warmth and good fresh seafood.”

The Crab General’s motto is “Juicy Seafood,” and the restaurant lives up to that motto by getting its dishes “fresh off the boat,” Chen said.

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Open since early November, The Crab General offers a Get Your Hands Dirty clambake-style feast as its signature dish. The three-step meal of at least 1 pound includes green or black mussels ($15 a pound), clams ($13), crawfish ($15), shrimp ($16 head on, $18 head off ), scallops ($30), snow crab legs. ($32) and Dungeness crab, king crab legs, and lobster tail at standard (but fluctuating) market prices. For non-seafood eaters, there are also $10 a pound sausages.

Step two of Get Your Hands Dirty is choosing the seasoning: Cajun, Garlic Butter, Lemon Pepper, and Juicy Special, a mix of all three. Then diners choose their “spicy level”: not spicy, mild, medium, hot or extra hot. The sea-fresh feast comes with corn and potatoes, much like a Maine lobster pot or a Louisiana crawfish boil.

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“Business has been good so far,” Chen said. “Customers seem to really like it.”

The food is matched by entertaining decor, like oversized paintings and sculptures of sea creatures and pirates, displays of rum barrels, ship components, treasures, beach scenes and sea kayaks, four streaming TVs and a psychedelic star show playing on the ceiling. The restaurant also includes a draw at each table for a prize of over $50 or a coupon for a later visit.

For more information about The Crab General, visit www.thecrabgeneral.com. For more information on Carteret Business Partnership, visit www.carteret.net/carteret-business-partnership/.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Carteret NJ: Crab General Seafood Restaurant Welcomed to Borough

When a mutual friend of future Shuck Me Seafood owners Roger and Monica Haverkamp first called Bill Curci years ago to help the Haverkamps with their restaurants, Curci said his first question was, “How’s it going? ‘call? “

“He said, ‘Bust me,'” Curci remembers hearing from his friend, whom he hadn’t spoken to for 20 years. “And I said, ‘Shuck Me? I’m not going to work for a place called Shuck Me.

However, when Curci decided to visit the restaurant, he fell in love with it and the Haverkamps, so much so that he left his position as vice president of operations for another restaurant to serve as an operating partner. chief for Shuck Me.

“I was like, ‘OK, this is really something,’” said Curci. “I was impressed.”

But before Curci arrived and Shuck Me opened, Roger was running a party for H&H Concrete On Demand Inc. in a building right next to his Southlake home, Curci said. After a friend approached Roger to open a restaurant, that building was transformed into the first Shuck Me restaurant, located in Southlake.

The restaurant’s location in Fort Worth became its third after opening the second in Hochatown, Oklahoma.

According to history, according to Curci, the name “Shuck Me” appeared when the restaurant was still under construction. Roger once received a call informing him that one of his H&H drivers destroyed a brand new mixer truck, which cost around $ 300,000.

“He was with a bunch of people, and everything he could think of [to say] was, ‘Shuck me,’ ”Curci said. “And someone said, ‘Hey, oh my God, that’s the name of your seafood restaurant.'”

Original name aside, Curci said what sets Shuck Me apart from other seafood restaurants is its authenticity, as the Haverkamps fish competitively and decorate all the restaurants with family photos and decor. peach.

“It’s literally a passionate Roger and Monica project,” said Curci.

Among all of Shuck Me’s diverse menu, Curci said they are known for their fried catfish. Shuck Me offers deep fried combo baskets, which include different ratios of catfish, shrimp and oysters.

Curci said he had heard “more than once” that Shuck Me had the best lobster chowder in the world. And while the restaurant doesn’t consider itself to be a Cajun restaurant, it does have a variety of Cajun items on the menu, such as the Jambalaya.

Shuck Me is opening two new locations in Austin and Denton, Curci said. The Austin location will open before Christmas and the Denton location will open in early spring.

“[Roger] always says he doesn’t care if they make any money – he just wants them to succeed and have a good reputation and people to come and enjoy it, ”said Curci.

Fuck me – 585 Randol Mill Ave, Southlake. 817-748-2563. www.shuckme.net/index.htm Hours: Sun-Thu 11 am-9pm, Fri-Sat 11 am-10pm