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DALLAS — The floorboards creak a little at The Olde House Cafe on Lake Street.
It’s one of the characteristics that makes the restaurant — literally an old house — unique. Starting this week, customers at the eatery can keep that cozy feeling going through dinnertime.
The restaurant began serving dinner between the hours of 4:30 and 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The dinner service will be held on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with plans to expand the hours in the future.
The restaurant was previously open from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Sara Wise, who took over ownership of the cafe with her husband, Adam, last July, said she always wanted to do a dinner service but “didn’t have the time or the energy” to do so.
Enter Chef John Golecki II.
Golecki, a classically trained chef who’s worked throughout Manhattan and South Jersey, said he’d been looking for an opportunity to get out of the fine dining business and cook the cuisine he loves most — comfort food.
Wise said she had a broad vision for the dinner menu, but gave Golecki free rein to make it his own.
The result is a list of dinner options including pot roast, mac and cheese, meatloaf and porketta. Golecki said it’s food that “gives you that warm feeling inside,” with a fine dining twist.
“I remember when my mother would make (those meals) for me,” said Golecki. “It makes you feel safe.”
Golecki said another focus of the menu is getting locally sourced ingredients as much as possible. He uses maple syrup from The Lands at Hillside Farms and ham from Fetch’s Kielbassi Shop/Meat Market.
He said he aims to keep the menu as simple as possible. One dish features his top secret, six-ingredient marinara sauce. Golecki learned it from a previous employer’s 84-year-old mother, and he’s been making it for 12 years.
“My mother asks me for the recipe — I won’t give it to her,” he said.
Wise, who’s been working in various roles at the cafe for 12 years, said she didn’t want to change anything about the restaurant when she and her husband took over. They just wanted to expand on what makes the business work, she said.
And the reason she does anything is the customers.
“The customers really become like family,” said Wise. “We have regulars who come here every single day.”
She said there will be no changes to the existing breakfast and lunch menus, but more special dishes will be added in the future. Golecki said the dinner menu will change seasonally to include locally-grown produce.
Wise said the soft opening for the dinner service held last week went well, and she looks forward to expanding the restaurant’s hours.
“It has a neat feel at night,” she said, noting the old fashioned lanterns on each table. “… It’s like you’re in a New England cottage.”
