Today we’d like to introduce you to Bill Kerens.
Bill, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In 2009 I lost my job of 30 years at a High Tech firm in Boston. As with many in the great recession of 2009 I decided to exit the corporate world and try to develop a business on my own. My wife Tammy who also reinvented herself several years before by going from being a corporate officer in the finance industry to being a 7th grade math teacher at the Middle School in town. Tammy and I had worked in restaurants as teenagers. We remember those times fondly and decided to try an open a restaurant. We are both professed foodies and love to cook and try many types of food.
We searched around for about a year and were not able to find exactly what we were looking for. We had a couple of stops and starts in the process. We eventually settled on a small coffee shop that we thought might have some potential to be transformed into something more than a coffee shop. We barely came up with the money to purchase the business and had to really run it from our bootstraps. We have four children Brendan at the time was 21 and in college, Matthew was 19 and in college, Megan was 16 in high school and Katie was 12 in Jr High School. They all played a part in helping us build the business from washing dishes, to serving customers, to cooking.
We decided soon on to begin offering a full sit down breakfast menu. It was very tight quarters with very limited equipment and cooking space. Undaunted we proceeded to develop an eclectic menu with over 100 breakfast items such as a Cowboy Benedict, Blueberry Goat Cheese French Toast, and a Mexican Seven Layer Breakfast Bowl. Eventually two of our children went on to complete college and move on within their field of study. Our oldest son Brendan attended Culinary School and came back to be the head Chef. Our Youngest daughter Katie who started as a dishwasher at twelve has continued to work at the restaurant and is now a very talented Sous Chef to her brother. A business that was behind us left and we were able to expand our space by utilizing it as our kitchen,
Our business really took off and we have become very popular with waiting lines on the weekends and most days during the summer months. We have expanded our menu to include many interesting lunch items including a whole section of gourmet grilled cheeses. We were featured on the Phantom Gourmet and the restaurant has become a destination breakfast and lunch spot.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As I mentioned before we really bootstrapped this business. Not banks were going to lend money to people new to the restaurant industry especially in 2009. For eight years we worked 7 days a week, only being closed 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Labor Day and Christmas. 4 days off a year. Finally this year we decided to close one day a week (Tuesdays our slowest day)
The Corner Cafe – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I guess I would call us a specialty breakfast and lunch restaurant. While we provide the same breakfast and lunch items as other places (eggs, bacon, Eggs Benedict, sandwiches etc.) we put a twist on many of the items. For example we have several twists on Eggs Benedict : The Cowboy Benedict – An oven baked biscuit topped with our homemade pulled pork 2 poached eggs and smothered with BBQ hollandaise sauce, the Italian Benedict – On Oven Baked Croissant butted and grilled with our homemade pesto, topped with grilled prosciutto, 2 poached eggs and smothered with pesto hollandaise sauce. Our breakfast Bowls: Mexican seven Layer Bowl- Our famous AuGratin Homefries on the bottom of a bowl, topped with black beans, scrambled eggs, salsa, melted cheddar jack cheese, avocados, a dollop of sour cream surrounded by grilled flatbread, The Rueben Bowl – Our homemade slow cooked corned beef hash on the bottom of the bowl topped with scrambled eggs, our “rueben cream cheese mixture” (cream cheese, sourkraut, and Thousand Isle dressing combined), melted swiss cheese, a drizzled of thousand Isle dressing surrounded by Rye toast. Or our Conquistidor Lunch Sandwich – Swiss Cheese, Turkey, Caramelized red onions, avocado, tomato and our Chipotle Mayo, grilled to perfection on our oversized wheat bread. You get the gist. We do cool food. The thing I am most proud of is how much our customers love us. They constantly go out of their way to compliment us, many times sticking their heads into the kitchen window or even marching right into the kitchen to tell us what a great experience they had, from the food, to the friendly atmosphere to the wonderful service. An at-testament to this can be found on ALL of the social network review sites where we always get very high ratings. If we don’t which happens once in a while, we don’t take offense, we look into what went wrong and fix it. To us the customer is truly always right.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I don’t think I can pick one moment. I am very proud of my Family and how they have dug in in tough times and never given up. We are a very, very hard working family. We are not necessarily prideful, actually much more humble and thankful for what we have.
Contact Info:
- Address: The Corner Cafe
2000 Ocean Street
Marshfield, MA 02050 - Website: cornercafemarshfield.com
- Phone: 7818378150
- Email: thecornercafemarshfield@yahoo.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Corner-Cafe-123322527689144/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz_redir?cachebuster=1528470377&s=2b7cf08d562135e364e309527cfb8fc35658a9c151cb1162a279092be67ed40c&src_bizid=rJIj66ycZ6j3N6EsXFB1FQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcornercafemarshfield.com%2Flunch&website_link_type=menu
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