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Café Yumm! began in my kitchen nearly 30 years ago. Combining healthful, delicious ingredients to coax my 2-year-old daughter to eat vegetables and grains was a bit of a challenge. The first simple combination of canola oil, nutritional yeast and soy sauce led to years of experimentation with ingredients - taking some away, adding some, and forever blending, blending, blending, to achieve the creamy, heavenly sauce we serve today.
I was born in Tokyo and grew up in an East-West household. My Japanese mother cooked a variety of delicious rice dishes. My father hailed from Kentucky. Being a true southern boy he’d cook up a mess o’ beans from time to time. Well, he didn’t eat rice and mama didn’t like beans, but I loved ‘em both. It wasn’t until much later that I learned rice and beans, when eaten together, create a complete protein.
When I opened my first café, Wild Rose Café & Deli in 1991, I served rice and beans in a bowl with my special sauce and salsa on it. Almost without exception, my customers would take a bite, roll their eyes heavenward, do a little knee-dip and say, “Yumm... what is this?” Henceforth, we called the dish Yumm!.
When Yumm!, in all its various forms, became the most popular dish in my new deli, Wild Rose Food Company, we decided it needed its own café to fully expand the rice and bean theme. I realized that my customers wanted simple, deeply nourishing and soul-satisfying daily fare.
The mission of Café Yumm! is to bring the ‘good stuff’ of our home kitchen, which our family and friends have enjoyed for years, to you, our much appreciated customer. You deserve the best. After all, it’s you who keep us here and we thank you!
Rice & Beanly Yours,
P.S. While we eat so healthfully and heartily, let us not forget those on our planet and in our communities who are less fortunate. Please support your local food programs.
