New Café starts Fennville "journey"
by Bill Brown

On Saturday, Dec. 6, the Journeyman Café opened in Fennville giving residents one more good reason to spend more time downtown. Then, on Saturday, Dec. 13, the owners, Matt Millar and Amy Cook hosted an open house to introduce the community to their new enterprise, located at 114 East Main Street.

Cook has been a resident of Fennville for about three years and Millar for two years. The two started to think about opening a restaurant in the community about 18 months ago, looking at potential building spaces and trying to determine what type of food service establishment the community really wanted. They discussed the possibilities with members of the Downtown Business Authority and Chamber of Commerce. Millar, born in the Detroit area is a graduate of Grand Valley State University. He has lived in Western Michigan for the last 18 years, mostly in the food service industry, learning his trade as a chef. He sees this opportunity o own his own restaurant as a chance to put into practice the better things he has learned. Millar believes in freshness and in using organic produced ingredients when they are available. He has talked to local farmers and growers and will purchase as much of his food as possible from here in the area. He is searching for local dairymen who can supply him locally with their product.

"There is a lady in Wisconsin, Odessa Piper, who has a very popular restaurant and she has convinced me that this concept is really the wave of the future," he said. "People like the idea." Right now the Journeyman Café is serving a variety of coffees, pastries and handmade chocolates. By March of 204 their oven will be installed and then they will be selling fresh baked Rustic European type breads and all of their pastries will be made on-site. Millar has found a supplier of organic flour from northern Indiana. Including the coffee varieties that are served now at the café, he estimates that all his supplies will come from a radius of 20 miles around Fennville. Cook will stay with her job at Looman Construction in Douglas and work in the café evenings and weekends. The partners are offering full service catering right now while they prepare most of the food in another professional kitchen, The building they are in, is ready to go. The front is being used now for the café while the back will be used as the seating area for the coming restaurant, kitchen and ovens. The full service restaurant will be open in May. Millar said they took possession of the space 11 days before they opened the doors early in December, He said that the building owner, Steve Darpel and Mark Shrock have been encouraging and made it possible for them to be open in time for the annual Fennville Christmas activities. The new signs should be up soon announcing the arrival of the Journeyman in the community and in the meantime, Matt Millar and Amy Cook hope residents will stop in and enjoy a hot cup of coffee and the coziness of their new café.