The town of Queensbury will soon have a new café they can stop at for breakfast and lunch–even to pick up some fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables to take home.
Kelly Ehlert is the owner and chef of Kelly’s Roots Café and Marketplace, located at 13½ Luzerne Road, in the building that was formerly Ginger’s Dance Studio.
Renovations are almost complete on the property and Ehlert is planning on a soft opening sometime in June.
The café will seat between 20-25 people indoors and there is also a newly built outdoor patio with seating and umbrellas where customers can enjoy their breakfast or lunch. The patio will also include a miniature farmer’s market where customers can shop for fresh, locally grown corn, tomatoes, apples, and other seasonal fruits and vegetables.
Growing up in an Italian family, Ehlert fondly recalled her grandmother and mother in the kitchen, busily preparing food. She has shared their love of making and serving good food ever since she can remember. But, she said she never thought that she would grow up to become a chef and own her own café.
Ehlert’s parents both recognized her interest in food and her natural talent for preparing it. After taking some courses at Adirondack Community College following high school, Ehlert found herself wondering what direction to go. It was her mother who suggested that she consider culinary school.
A few months later, Ehlert enrolled at the International Culinary Center in San José, Calif., and in 2013 she received her Culinary Arts Certificate. Following graduation, Ehlert returned home, where she worked for the Sagamore Hotel in Bolton landing in its restaurant kitchen. She later became the breakfast chef at the Inn at Erlowest in Lake George.
Ehlert’s decision to go out on her own was supported by her parents. With the financial backing of her parents, Ehlert was able to purchase the building on Luzerne Road and begin the next phase of her culinary career.
The name, “Kelly’s Roots,” is a play on words symbolizing Ehlert’s local “roots” in the area, she said, as well as her love for the other kinds of roots that produce the fresh ingredients in her cooking.
Ehlert’s menu will focus on fresh local food.
“One of the things I loved most about California were the avocados,” Ehlert said, and she plans to have lots of items containing them on the menu.
She also loved the breakfast burritos that were readily available in the San Jose area, and customers can expect to find them on the menu as well.
Ehlert will offer a wide variety of options for salads on the lunch menu. She said she expects her mixed greens with roasted beets, locally-sourced goat cheese and roasted pecans to be a big hit. Customers will also have the option to add grilled chicken and other meats to their salads.
Other menu items will include breakfast and lunch sandwiches, wraps, paninis, waffles, parfaits and homemade soups.
Ehlert said the area will benefit from the addition of Kelly’s Roots Café and Marketplace.
“There aren’t a whole lot of options for people to find good home-cooked food in this part of town,” she said. She also noted that there is a steady stream of traffic that passes by the café and expects to get a lot of walk-in traffic from people who will be curious about her new business.
Ehlert’s Café is on Facebook and she expects to launch her website, www.KellysRootsCafe.com shortly before the planned June opening.