Our Daily Show Interview! Almost A Year- Rosewood Cafe Off to a Great Start!
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EAST ALTON - Rosewood Café is celebrating its first anniversary, and owner Tija Hunter is excited to share their homemade menu, new fall lattes, soup flights and more fun with the community.
Located at 961 East Airline Drive in East Alton, the café is “doing fabulous.” Hunter loves the “charm” of the place, and she works hard to serve up that welcoming atmosphere and delicious food.
“Sometimes I think I’m Italian because I feel like I have to feed everybody,” Hunter joked. “I’m very happy. Every small business owner could be busier. No two ways about that. But we’re really excited. People come in every day that have never been there, and they’re excited. It’s fun to see them, to watch them experience it.”
The café’s menu includes coffee, soups, sandwiches, toast and similar items from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays, and 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Sundays. They also serve pizza, loaded tater tots, and other specials from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.
The café provides free delivery through the Toast app for teachers and staff members in the Bethalto, Roxana and East Alton-Wood River school districts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You can visit their official Facebook page for more information.
Hunter always wanted to operate a restaurant. When she was 17, she walked into a Baskin-Robbins and asked how to open a franchise. While the franchise didn’t work out, this long-standing dream followed her until last year, when she opened Rosewood Café.
It was important to Hunter to create a spot with a welcoming vibe and a different menu. Her café serves bread bowls, soup flights, and a wide variety of coffee drinks, with the fall menu recently released. She joked that while she is not a coffee drinker, she has incredible baristas who work hard to build up the menu.
“I didn’t want to open a place to serve bacon and eggs. I wanted something with a unique twist,” Hunter explained. “Let me tell you a secret. I hate coffee. I do not drink it. But let me tell you, I have some amazing baristas. You don’t want me making your coffee. I have no clue. But I have these baristas who get so excited about creating new lattes.”
Hunter added that the café makes everything fresh to serve. Unlike some restaurants, Hunter said she will never encourage anyone to leave; she invites the community to come, sit, and “bring their laptops and suck up our internet and work” for as long as they like.
The café also recently secured a liquor license from the Village of Bethalto, and Hunter is now going through the State of Illinois application process so she can serve liquor. She envisions “Wine Wednesdays” and ladies’ nights out at the café.
While the café has grown over the past year, its original charm and intent stays the same. Hunter looks forward to building the Rosewood Café menu, hosting events, and welcoming the community.
“We’ve changed a lot since we opened,” she reflected. “I think it’s been changed for the better.”
For more information about Rosewood Café visit their official Facebook page.
