Courthouse to Coffeehouse

If you work within a three-block radius of downtown Ventura, your lunch delivery options just grew by one. Kelly’s Coffee & Fudge Factory on Main Street this week began delivering all items from its menu of sandwiches, salads, baked goods, sweets, coffees and specialty drinks.

“We know that a lot of the merchants are alone in their store and they can’t get out,” said Kelly’s manager Marilyn Kemper. “Plus, a lot of people are very limited in the time they get for lunch. It’s an extension of our courtesy here.”

There are a couple caveats to consider before phoning your delivery request: All orders must be placed by 10:30 a.m. Deliveries will be made between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. There is no charge for delivery and no minimum.

Sandwich fare at the coffeehouse includes blackened Cajun chicken, Kelly’s turkey, tuna salad, egg salad, spicy beef, Kelly’s club and Black Forest ham and cheese. For salads, choose among a Caesar, Cobb, spicy Cajun chicken and green salad.

For easier delivery, management requests that you keep your liquid order to a maximum of four drinks.

Owner Mary Jones said the delivery service is part of an ongoing effort to offer more amenities at the fledgling business. “I’m trying to expand it all the time to meet everybody’s needs and interests,” she said.

For Jones, who opened the franchise with fiancee George Beesley on Dec. 23, the business of coffee presents a major career change.

Jones has taken one-year leave from her duties as a Ventura County public defender to launch the business.

Two years ago, yearning for a change of venue but unsure of which professional path to take, Jones and Beesley perused the plethora of information booths at the Anaheim Entrepreneur Expo. “George happened to come across Kelly’s, and they were promoting coffee carts,” Jones said.

“That was something that he was interested in because we have all the beach parties and street fairs here.”

After inquiring about franchising a Kelly’s coffee cart, Beesley learned that the corporate office had already secured a lease to open an outlet next to the then-forthcoming downtown theater complex. All the company needed now was to locate a franchisee. “It was kind of a fluke,” Jones said.

Though working even more hours than in her courtroom days, Jones said she is having fun again.

It’s not all double cappuccino and whipped cream, though. Along with learning how to run a business with no prior entrepreneurial experience, Jones is contending with the stigma of bearing a corporate logo in historically independent downtown Ventura. There have been grumblings.

Jones stresses that her franchise is independently owned and that she and Beesley are not outsiders looking to devour the competition. Both grew up in Oxnard, she said, and now live in Oak View. Beesley is also proprietor of a Ventura hair salon.

Said Jones: “The whole point of Kelly’s is that it may have a corporate name, but we’re just like everybody else. We’re locals. We struggle. We got our own business loan. We’re in debt just like everybody else. And we’re trying to make it work just like everybody else.”

DETAILS

Kelly’s Coffee & Fudge Factory is at 533 E. Main St., Ventura. Hours: 6 a.m.-midnight Sun.-Thur.; till 2:30 a.m. Fri.-Sat. Call 641-9951.

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Longtime Ventura County restaurant owner Bud Sweeney has taken on the role of operating the Los Robles Inn Banquet Center in Thousand Oaks. He is owner of Sweeney’s Cafe in Camarillo and Sweeney’s At Macy’s at The Oaks mall.

The two banquet rooms at the inn have been idle for about three years. Sweeney said he will manage the city-owned facilities for the next two years.

“The city might make a decision at the end of that period to tear it down and build it all new,” he said.

Engagements can be booked for the 300-seat Los Robles Room, which features a 900-square-foot dance floor, and the 200-seat Fireside Room. “That is a nice room, with a beam ceiling and fireplace,” he said. “One wall is all glass and looks out to the golf course.”

There are no cooking facilities on site, despite the Fireside Room having been home to restaurants over the years. Most recently it was Joseph’s on the Green. Sweeney can provide tables and chairs, the dance floor, social area and on-site supervision. He can also act as party planner and caterer via Sweeney Parties Unlimited.

For more information about renting the facilities, located at 299 S. Moorpark Road, call 497-1040.

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Rabbi Yisroel Levine is up to his elbows in matzo this week, and you can be, too. Levine and the Chabad of the Conejo will present the hands-on family workshop Model Matzo Bakery from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Participants will prepare and bake their own Passover matzo and hear Levine tell the story of Passover, the eight-day observance commemorating the exodus of the Jewish slaves from Egypt.

“When the Jewish people were freed from Egypt they ran in haste and did not have any time to bake their breads,” he said. “So they just ran out of Egypt with their dough in their sacks, and the sun baked it and it turned out to be matzo. Because of that, and besides commemorating the liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt, we only eat matzo those eight days,” he said.

The baking will be at the Chabad Center, 741 Lakefield Road, Suite D, Westlake Village. There is no charge. For more information, call (805) 374-8666 or (818) 991-0991.