A little bit of Lopez Island in New York

A popular song claims that if you can make it New York you’ll make it anywhere. If that’s true, then the future looks bright for Lopezian Rachel Graville and her new business in Brooklyn, Iris Café.

A popular song claims that if you can make it New York you’ll make it anywhere. If that’s true, then the future looks bright for Lopezian Rachel Graville and her new business in Brooklyn, Iris Café.

Graville, daughter of Jerry Graville and this writer of Lopez, moved to New York in 2007 for an internship with Slow Food, an international organization started in Italy in the 1980s to protest “fast food.” By the time her internship was over, Graville was hooked on New York, having mastered the subway system and discovered that New York’s restaurant scene was embracing the Slow Food philosophy of local, seasonal cooking. Although she hadn’t set out to open her own café, Graville jumped at the opportunity when an investor approached her last year. She’s clear that the vision for Iris Café was nurtured on Lopez.

While in college, Graville came back to Lopez in the summer to work at Vita’s. “Working with Joyce [Brinar, Vita’s owner] was my version of cooking school,” she says. “That’s where I learned all the basic cooking techniques.” She recalls becoming skilled at making a roux, a mixture of melted butter and browned flour for thickening sauces. “I made it, burned it and had to throw it away a few times,” she says, “but now I know how it’s done.”

ADVERTISEMENT
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
00:00
00:00
 

Graville, a 2000 graduate of Lopez Island High School, put her Vita’s cooking experience to good use her senior year of college as co-manager of the local food co-op café. There, she learned about developing menus, ordering supplies, and hiring and training staff.

In the summer of 2008, Graville escorted a Slow Food colleague to several farms on Lopez. The tour included a stop at Horsedrawn Farm where the two saw the Mobile Meat Processing Unit in action. “That experience stimulated my interest in sustainably-raised meat, and it’s when I first started thinking about butchering,” Graville says. “I thought it was a skill I’d like to have.” When she returned to New York, Graville arranged for an apprenticeship with a butcher. She now makes her own beef jerky and markets it as “Gerald Jerky” (named after her dad, who first introduced her to the dried meat snack as a kid).

Jerky-making was a hobby Graville pursued while working as front-of-house manager at several restaurants and as the Event Director for Edible Manhattan magazine. Although she enjoyed these jobs’ coordinating tasks, she yearned for something more hands-on with food. “I had my own ideas about concept, menu, and food sources for restaurants,” she says, “and I dreamed about someday trying them out.”

Graville’s thoughts appealed to her business partner as well, and they found an ideal location in a store-front on a cobblestone street in Brooklyn Heights. “I really liked the look of this building,” Graville says, “and it felt like the neighborhood needed a gathering place.” Tony and Renee, Brooklyn Heights residents for over 60 years, agree. “This is the best thing that’s happened in this neighborhood since we’ve lived here,” Tony said.

The café seats 22 at small tables with mismatched wood chairs. Daylight streams in through bay windows and glistens the hardwood floor and tin ceiling. Scents of cinnamon, butter, chocolate, and smoked ham from the open kitchen linger in the air. Exposed brick walls are adorned with Summer Moons Scriver’s photographs of the hands of a number of Lopezians from the book, Hands at Work, written and published by Graville’s mother.

“At Iris Café, I’m drawing on my work experience with a number of Lopez businesses,” Graville explains, including Vita’s, Isabel’s Espresso, and Fish Bay Mercantile. “And of course, growing up on Lopez, I ate lots of delicious food from Holly B’s and Vortex.”

A small, lighted display case at the café is brimming with Hudson Valley eggs, butter from Vermont, and milk in glass bottles from a nearby dairy. “Joyce taught me the importance of presenting abundance in a pleasing way,” says Graville. An antique, defunct ice box includes more grocery items—Stumptown whole bean coffee, hand-made chocolates, and Iris Café grits mix. Many customers from the neighborhood pick up these staples and treats after work.

Not only people in Brooklyn Heights have noticed Iris Café. Since opening in late November, New York Magazine named it Best Café for 2010 (www.nymag.com/bestofny/food/2010/cafe/), and it made the New York Times list of “Best Coffee Places in New York and Brooklyn” (www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/dining/10coffee.html). More attention will come to the café this summer when Gerald Jerky features are set to appear in Food and Wine and Maxim magazines. It seems that in Brooklyn and beyond, a little bit of Lopez is a key to success.

Photo by Iris Graville

cutline –

Rachel Graville at the door of her new business in New York. “Since the space used to be a flower shop, and my mom’s name is Iris, it became Iris Café,” she says.