EUGENE, Ore. — The annual celebration shining light on the societal contributions of great women of the past and present happens every year during the month of March.
In Lane County, we caught up with two business owners who hope to also hope to inspire great women of the future.
To get to the root of Tamara Cook’s love for good food, you’d have to go back to the smells, sights, and flavors of the first kitchens she knew in her hometown of Brownsville, Oregon.
“I grew up with a mother who’s an amazing chef, grandmother who’s an amazing chef, so food was always our love language,” Cook said.
Yet a dream she shared with her mother — cultivated in those kitchens — to one day own her own restaurant took a backseat as her career in corporate finance took off.
“In my other career, I really wanted to do something different, something that made me happy — something that brought me joy,” she said.
Cook began looking at restaurants when she moved back to the area after 20 years in Los Angeles, and that’s when that dream gained its legs.
Reflecting on her favorite times with friends in Los Angeles became the inspiration for her restaurant.
“We used to go have mimosas with brunch, and when I moved back to Eugene, I would google — mimosas in Eugene, and I didn’t really have enough answers,” she said. “I figured if I wanted the brunch place that made me happy in LA, I would do it myself.”
Late last year, Cook opened Mimosas in Coburg, where the brunch staple takes center stage each week, along with breakfast foods like a classic eggs benedict or strawberries and cream croissant waffles.
She’d tap into the skills she gained from working in the restaurant business in college to pull the quaint space together and pull in customers.
Travel less that 15 minutes south of Mimosas, and you’ll be able to whet your palette on some of the cleanest eats in town at Lovely in Springfield, co-owned by Sarah Adler and her husband Josh Matthews.
The mother of two says it’s a simple characteristic she believes she may have been born with that gave her success at entrepreneurship — one that she watched play out with her own daughter on a local bike trail just days ago.
“Nico, who’s 3 years old, has gone five miles, and she keeps crashing. I could hear her in the background falling and him going, well why don’t we wait for mom, and she’ll come get you? ‘No, I want to do it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to make it,'” Adler said. “I think it really comes down to that is the idea that it’s innate in who I am to figure it out and to keep going, and to not let things get me down.”
While developing the business, what enabled her to keep up with her children, being a wife, and her lofty professional ambitions and travel schedule was putting the proper fuel into her system, Adler said.
For her, organic food and optimal health go hand-in-hand: health she felt was vital to share with her customers.
“You didn’t really know what you were going to eat throughout the day; I was busy working. When I moved back to town, food as a vehicle to fuel you through the day I felt was missing in town except at a really high price point,” she said.
Items like rice and bean bowls, quinoa bowls, smoothies, cold pressed juices, tuna melts, and lattes are all on the menu, and Adler said with the influx of hungry patrons, Lovely has grown.
It’s only been three weeks in their new location which took them from a few hundred square feet to several thousand.
Both women say there is plenty of space and opportunity for young women to begin to dream and to take their place in any industry in which they aspire to have ownership.
“Women have as many good ideas as men do. If you want to open a restaurant, you need to work in the restaurant industry because you need to learn it from several different facets. If you want to open a retail shop, it would be great to go work for a mom and pop retail shop,” Cook said. “There are going to be surprises when you open your own business, but there won’t be as many surprises as if you’d been in the industry. You do need to prove yourself a little bit, and you do need to have a spine.”
“Women have such strong instincts, and they’re usually looking for the best in people. Get off the internet, and start talking to people. Start working on your dreams, which means getting into action about them, not expecting them to happen because you want it. I had those hard years where I pursued dreams that didn’t work out and wanted to give up, and I could hear mentors in my life — my econ teacher — egging me on — my parents, and my brothers,” Adler said.
Adler also credits her father for teaching her a strong work ethic and how to keep her body healthy through exercise, and her brain sharp through avid reading.
Lovely is located at 111 Main St. in Springfield and is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Mimosas is located at 91115 N. Willamette St. in Eugene and is open Thursday through Monday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
