Local café employee takes over Downtown business

By Leah Rainwater

A longtime café employee is looking forward to the future after recently taking over the reins of 7th Street Café in Downtown, St. Joseph.

New owner Brennon Calvin has been working at the café for four years and says owning a restaurant has always been one of his goals.

“I’ve always been passionate about food, I love … I’m 32 years old and I’ve worked in kitchens and restaurants and managing since I was 14,” Calvin said. “So the goal was always to own my own and work for myself.”

Working at the café has always been ideal for growth since he first started at the business.

“Our hours being 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., it’s ideal, you know” said Calvin. “That’s when my kid’s in school and I get the entire night to myself, so it was kind of a golden opportunity.”

Being the new owner, Calvin said he’s thinking about ideas to expand the business into more than just a shop.

“We want to get into catering, we wanna get into like, the office spaces, like box lunches and providing for like Altec, Boehringer,” said Calvin. “Somehow get that door open.”

But the ideas don’t stop there.

“Honestly, we’ve talked about a food truck,” said Calvin. “We’d like to do- under the LLC, we’d like to do probably three or four different ventures.”

Calvin says with the revitalization of Downtown, tourism and the endless support of locals, it’ll be great to continue to keep the café up and running.

“It’s a community down here, everybody is extremely tight knit and I love it,” said Calvin.