Caf owner announces plans to offer classes
Rita Marie's Caf, located in 1,800 square feet of leased space in an office building at 605 E. Holland, soon will start offering cooking classes evenings and weekends.

Rita Schlosser, who owns the caf with her husband, Dan, says people have been asking her for years to teach them how to cook. She says she didn't pay much attention to their requests until recently, when the office building the caf occupies lost several tenants and business dropped off. Schlosser says she will offer the classes "to try to keep us afloat and get word out that we're here."

She says her first class is planned for early February. She plans to offer hands-on baking instruction for $35 a session. Other planned classes include one on cooking soups and one on practical cooking with hamburger, Schlosser says.

"People don't know how to cook any more. I want to teach them how to budget their money better with food," Schlosser says. She plans to market the classes through word-of-mouth and through a weekly fax sent to about 65 restaurant customers.

Rita Marie's Caf is open for breakfast and lunch on weekdays, and serves biscuits and sweet rolls baked from scratch, freshly made soups, and daily entre specials on a five-week rotation. The caf seats 72 customers and has two full-time and two part-time employees.

Sisters open new fabric store in North Spokane
MaryAnn Nicholson and Patti Ann Moust have opened a fabric store, Sisters Country Fabrics, in the Fairwood Shopping Center, at 12130 N. Mill Road here.

Nicholson says she had owned a gift shop in Las Vegas before she retired. Last June, she and her husband came to Spokane to visit Moust, her sister, and decided to stay. The sisters then decided to open a fabric store when the 500-square-foot space at Fairwood, which formerly housed a post office, became available. Nicholson's husband, who retired from the construction industry, spent about six weeks remodeling the space to suit their needs.

The shop offers a variety of fabrics, yarn, notions such as thread and buttons, and fabric fat quarters for quilting. It plans to offer classes beginning in March.

Nicholson says traffic has been heavy through the store during its first two weeks of operation.

"Word-of-mouth has been very good," she says. "People are taking flyers and giving them to their friends. Our grand opening was very busy, and people have been coming back two or three times."

She says she thinks many older women living in the area are glad to have such a shop nearby, so they don't have to fight traffic to get to fabric stores farther away.

Coffee shop downtown under new ownership
Julie Mosey has purchased Brews Brothers Espresso Lounge, at 734 W. Sprague, from John and Venice Sullivan and Jovan and Shae Obando. Mosey declines to disclose the purchase price.

"When I heard they were selling, I jumped on it. It was time to do something on my own," says Mosey, who managed the Bean Me Up Espresso stand at 8625 N. Nevada for 10 years.

Since taking ownership in early December, Mosey has added a couch and a fireplace to the 1,200-square-foot shop. Along with coffee drinks, tea, and smoothies, Brews Brothers serves sandwiches, sweet rolls, and desserts, and offers beer and wine in the evenings. It offers coffee delivery to downtown businesses on weekday mornings.

Mosey says the coffee shop has three part-time employees, and is open 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and until 10 p.m. on weekends. She says the transition from managing a coffee drive-through to owning a coffee shop was not hard. Mosey says the former owners are carrying a contract on her purchase of the business.

Restaurateur takes over management at biz park eatery
Jerry Amicarella, owner of Mamma Mia's restaurant at 420 W. Francis, has taken over management of a 13,000-square-foot cafeteria in the Liberty Lake Business Park, at 22425 E. Appleway. The cafeteria serves mostly employees from businesses nearby, such as Safeco Insurance Co. and CompuCom Systems Inc.

The cafeteria, now called Mamma Mia's at Liberty Lake, has a salad bar, a sandwich bar, and a grill, Amicarella says. It serves breakfast and lunch from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., and offers breakfast items, burgers, fish and chips, and Italian dishes. Amicarella says he wants to begin catering from there after he's comfortable cooking the new cafeteria-style food.

"I've been looking for a catering facility," Amicarella says. "This kitchen is twice the size of my whole restaurant on Francis."

The Mamma Mia's eatery on Francis, which Amicarella has owned for six years, has 17 part-time employees and can seat 90 customers. The cafeteria in Liberty Lake has two full-time and five part-time employees, and can seat about 600 customers, Amicarella says.