Lisa Schroeder says she doesn't consider herself very woo-woo.
Still, when she was making major decisions regarding opening
her first-ever restaurant, the savvy Philadelphia native
relied on spirits for guidance.
The location she was considering, at the corner of Southwest
2nd Avenue and Alder Street, seemed cursed by demons of
its own. Several restaurants, most recently the Irish Bank,
had been unmercifully swallowed up by this Bermuda triangle
of the dining world. How to decide? Like the smart Jewish
girl that she is, Schroeder made a pro/con list with her
business/life partner Rob Sample. It read thus:
PRO
A steal
Great space
Low rent
Good lunch
Good breakfast
Good parking
4 blocks from Sat market
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CON
Not a lot of dinner biz
Not a neighborhood
A bit by itself
2 breakfast/lunch competitors
Kitchen sucks
Dishwasher needs relocating
Bad food storage
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Schroeder knew that these details, which looked so small
on paper, would loom large when it actually came to running
the restaurant that had percolated in her mind since 1992,
when she was working as a marketer with Weight Watchers
on Long Island. Back then she also made lists, and the first
item on it was to go to culinary school to increase her
chops. She learned how to make fancy sauces at the Culinary
Institute of America--the Harvard of cooking schools in
the States--and went on to schmancy stints at high-profile
places such as New York's Le Cirque and Lespinasse. She
perfected complex dishes and absorbed the skills to run
upscale restaurants. Of course, in the end, that wasn't
what she wanted to do. "I didn't want to cater to the rich
few," she remembers, "I wanted to offer really, really good
food that most people could eat on a regular basis." After
randomly meeting Sample, whom she calls the Chief Schmooze
Officer or CSO of Mother's, in New York, she moved to Portland
to be with him in his hometown. And it was together that
they tried to find the right spot for their restaurant.
So she made the pro/con list and was still stuck. She and
Rob, along with her daughter Stephanie, were on Northwest
23rd Avenue. A man was reading tarot cards. She plunked
down the cash, thinking what the hey, it can't hurt,
and as she drew her cards, one question blazed through her
brain: Should I pick this spot for the restaurant? The tarot
reader, without asking her any questions, remarked about
the first card: "Just do it. It doesn't matter where you
do it--the people will come."
So began Schroeder's field of dreams. After hiring a Feng
Shui master to consult on how to arrange the place, she
smudged some sage about, because what the hey, it couldn't
hurt, and began building the restaurant she dreamed
of when she was pushing pencils at Weight Watchers. She
opened the doors in the first month of the new millennium.
And the people did come. At noon, Mother's transforms into
a bustling place where business people mesh with ladies
who lunch, sprinkles of hipsterati dotting the landscape.
Dinner welcomes families, people out for a night at the
movies, maybe a birthday party or two. One recent night
found a family of four playing a board game as they waited
for their meal. The adjacent bar, sometimes forgotten by
Mother's lovers, is a dark, welcoming place to hide with
a nice cocktail and nuzzle with a sweetie.
So maybe it's the magic. More likely, it's the maternal
strength of Schroeder's vision and the instinctual understanding
of her adopted hometown that goes with it. Portland diners
have always been attracted to the simple, and many of the
signature restaurants in town, such as Wildwood and Higgins,
reflect this taste. But what Mother's does with this voluntary
simplicity is different. Schroeder serves honest fare that
strips away all of the pretense, as well as the high costs.
The prices are more than reasonable, and the clientele covers
many different strata. When a protest against the International
Monetary Fund erupted across from the restaurant during
our interview, Schroeder ran out into the street and played
along. While her smiling face (what a shayner putem,*
this Lisa) has graced the pages of Portland's media, it's
easy to see that Schroeder's goodwill and natural kibbitzing*
style are not an act, even though at times it's just as
attractive as the food. She describes what she does as a
mission from the heart, and you can taste it in the pot
roast and see it in her edelkeit.*
Mother's is the perfect restaurant of the year, not because
it's the most ingenious restaurant, not because it has a
shtick, not because it's the most nouveau or most chi-chi.
It's the restaurant of the year because it's got the most
heart.
*shayner putem= Yiddish for pretty face
*kibbitzing= Yiddish for chatting
*edelkeit=
Yiddish for sweetness in character
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