Harmony will soon be welcoming a brand new breakfast restaurant! It will be opening in the old Harmony House building. I was lucky enough to interview the owner of the restaurant—who is also the owner of Estelles—Matthew Brown, about the opening of Gabby Lou’s.

Q: How long have you been working in the restaurant industry for?

A: I have been working in this industry for about 12 years at this point.

Q: What made you want to work in this industry?

A: My brother owns a restaurant in the twin cities. He needed help with the business so I went to help him. While I was there, I fell in love with it.

Q: What made you decide to open up a second restaurant?

A: There were many reasons, but the 3 main reasons are:

1. I wanted to open up a sister restaurant for my daughter Gabby
2. Our current restaurant, Estelles, is what its going to be as far as no more room for expansion, only room to improve on systems we already have in place.
3. We live in this town and love it, but we have no place to go for breakfast

Q: What kind of food will be served?

A:Pastries such as cinnamon rolls, danishes, muffins, and cookies, as well as breakfast items such as breakfast tacos, biscuits and gravy, and skillets.

Q: How did you choose your menu items?

A: It’s what we like to eat, and what we think people will enjoy.

Q: Do you use local ingredients?

A: Yes, as much as we can. We will get meat from my father-in-law, Jim. We work with an amish family to get produce. We get our eggs locally. Sometimes we will even get maple locally to make our own syrup.

Q: Are you able to accommodate special dietary requests?

A: Absolutely. If we can feed you, we will. We try not to let anyone leave hungry.

Q: Do you offer catering services?

A: Yes, we do all sorts of caterings from weddings to graduation parties.

Q: What will the hours be?

A: 7-10:30 for breakfast, 11-1:30 for lunch, Wednesday-Saturday. We will also be open on Sundays for a brunch buffet from 9-1.

Q: How will you manage 2 restaurants at once?

A: My wife and Estelle’s pastry chef, Izzy, will be running Gabby’s for the most part.

Q: What were the biggest challenges when getting Gabby’s ready?

A: It is an old building, so there needed to be a ton of updating. The biggest hurdle in getting a restaurant ready is getting the foundation right, once you do that, you can play the music.

Q: Do you have any advice for people looking to start their own restaurant?

A: If you’re going to do it, you have to be all in. Surround yourself with good people who are trainable.

Q: Anything else you would like people to know about the new restaurant?

A: It is incredibly important to me that people in this town have a place to gather. To bring family and friends from out of town. To work on your essay. Thats what we are trying to provide. If people can appreciate that, we can succeed.

Good luck to Matt with the restaurant! Big thanks to you for taking time out of your day to provide an interview!