Written by Amy Stoltenberg
Photographs by Katherine Rountree and Crobsy Ignasher
Opening the door to Kapa Cafe is like walking into your favorite aunt’s kitchen, with the smell of homemade bread and the sight of colorfully decorated sugar cookies and homey potted plants placed on various tables. Located on 1514 Bull St., just down the street from Arnold Hall and around the corner from Eckburg, this neighborhood cafe is an inexpensive taste of home.
Karla Mobley and Patty Carswell, the owners of Kapa Cafe, opened the restaurant just under a year ago in July 2013. The idea was to create a place where people could come to feel comfortable and relaxed while eating home-cooked favorites.
“We tried to have a place where people could come and we could fix them up the food they like. We wanted it to be casual, friendly and homey,” said Carswell. “Everything in here is a hodge lodge of stuff we pieced up from garage sales stuff from our own houses.”
Mobely added, “We want people to think that they can come here and sit and read for hours. Students will come in and set up their stuff and just work all afternoon on a project.”
The two restaurateurs serve a wide variety of customers, ranging from local neighborhood residents and business people to churches and tourists. They have a special place in their hearts for SCAD students. Multiple student films have been shot on-location, and even some of the sandwiches the cafe now offers were inspired by and named after SCAD students, including Aidan’s earth and egg breakfast sandwich (mozzarella, pesto, basil, tomato and egg on a fresh croissant) and Will’s tuna melt (tuna salad, tomato and swiss on pesto-crusted bread).
The rest of the menu is comprised of a conglomeration of recipes that have been in their families, as well as things that the two women have come up with from their own tastes and from feeling out what the customers prefer.
“Its the food our families like and our friends like,” said Mobely.
For breakfast, expect kitchen staples like bagels, house-made butter croissants, slices of fresh fruit loaf bread, croissant sandwiches and pita hot pockets. Lunch sings a similar tune of hot and cold sandwiches priced from $3.75 to under $8 with potato salad or fruit. Their most popular item is a chicken salad croissant.
Dessert is a conglomeration of goodies that one might find at a big family reunion gathering. Carswell explained that, while they do make a few staple items daily, the rest of the treats rotate around by whatever she feels like making.
“We try to always keep carrot cake and red velvet cake, but those go so fast. We usually always keep creme de menthe brownies, lemon bars, toffee bars, and then we just supplement.”
Of course, everything is made from scratch in the little open kitchen separated from the seating area only by a counter divider.
Kapa Cafe offers call-ahead ordering, so students can call and order breakfast or lunch to pick up on the way to class.
Said Carswell, “Karla and I have been best friends for many years now, and we’re still having fun working together. Its nice to have a niche, and I think we’ve found it.”
Kapa Cafe is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
