HOLLANDALE -&160;The community of Hollandale will soon have a new, old cafe where they can eat breakfast and dinner.

Thursday, February 07, 2002

HOLLANDALE -&160;The community of Hollandale will soon have a new, old cafe where they can eat breakfast and dinner. The Home Cafe will be reopening for business soon, possibly as early as Monday, Feb. 11.

Sisters Kathy Slegh and Gloria Ash have been working in the cafe building since the beginning of January, getting it cleaned up, doing some repair work and redecorating a little. The main obstacle to opening now is the new grill, which was still stuck in Nebraska somewhere on Wednesday. They are hoping it shows up on Thursday, and can be installed in time for the health inspector’s visit.

&uot;At first we were hoping to be open by the first of February, and then we moved it back to the eighth, and now we’re thinking of the 11th,&uot; said Slegh.

&uot;We thought the new grill would be here with no problems, but that would have been too easy,&uot; said Ash.

The old Home Cafe closed last May, and it was in November that Slegh and Ash started talking with the owner of the building, Jim Struyk, about possibly leasing the space and reopening the cafe.

&uot;We should have started working on it back in November, too,&uot; said Slegh.

&uot;Then maybe we’d be done with all this,&uot; Ash added.

&uot;Probably not,&uot; responded Slegh.

They haven’t lost their sense of humor yet, despite having so much to do in such a short time.

&uot;We’ve found plenty of reasons to laugh and to cry, and even, sometimes, to cuss,&uot; said Slegh. But they’ve limited their use of colorful metaphors to times when nobody else is around, her sister added.

Before they started thinking about taking over the cafe, Slegh was working in Owatonna, at Mustang, a skidloader manufacturing company. Ash was working for Cedar Valley Services in Austin. Both actually worked in the cafe as waitresses back in the 1980s.

The project has become a family operation, with both of their husbands, Bob &uot;Weld&uot; Slegh and Dan Ash, coming in to work in the evenings and on weekends. The landlord, Struyk, who also owns Spanky’s Bar next door to the cafe, has also been working on equipment and putting in a new ceiling.

The sisters have invested their own savings in the project, as well as their time and energy, and have a line of credit that is helping them get started. They are hoping business starts off big and stays that way.

Since they worked in the cafe before, they remember many of the people and the traditions of the place, and plan on keeping things as they used to be as much as possible. They’ll keep the same hours and many of the same items will be on the menu. They even found an old picture of the cafe from many years earlier and have it hanging on the wall.

One thing they hope to do differently is fix more food from scratch, like cinnamon rolls and cookies. And Ash has already promised to make her famous manicotti once in awhile, as one of the daily specials.

They say that people in town are eager for the place to open. When they are out in the community, they’ve been asked many times when they’ll be open and have been told to &uot;hurry it up&uot; by some.

If they do manage to get everything ready by Monday, they plan on serving ‘ole bollen’ in celebration of the grand reopening. ‘Ole bollen’ are kind of like donut holes, with raisins, apple pieces and currants in them, and they’re rolled in sugar. They won’t be a regular item, say the sisters, but opening day requires something special.

When it does open up again, the Home Cafe will be serving food from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. They will be closed on Sundays. They may eventually stay open Friday evenings to do some take out business with Spanky’s Bar next door, but they haven’t decided for sure about that.

&uot;Who knows what the future holds?&uot; Slegh said.