Former Cafe 35 now Brooker T's, expands dinner hours
Brooke Bishop (left) and her mother, Tammy Cornell, stand outside their restaurant at 103 S. Main St. in uptown Lexington. The two women opened Brooker T’s Cafe in May in the former Cafe 35 space. {Vikki Broughton Hodges/Davidson Local}
Brooker T’s Café replaces Café 35 uptown
A mother and daughter with long ties to the local restaurant industry purchased Café 35 this spring and have added a new name, a slightly revised menu, a little more seating, a bar with a view of Main Street and dinner hours on Fridays.
Tammy Cornell and her daughter, Brooke Bishop, opened Brooker T’s Cafe at 103 S. Main St. in May after some renovations, such as moving the lunch counter in the main dining area into the upper dining room and turning it into a full-service bar with cocktails as well as wine and craft beers. They also took down some walls and removed some booths in the main dining room to expand seating and have more tables that can be put together for larger groups. About 130 people can be seated inside and another 32 outside.
They purchased the popular business from Linda and Mark Gosselin, who had operated the restaurant for 17 years but wanted to retire.
So far, the business partners have been pleased with the reception they have received and are looking to add more dinner hours as soon as they can get to a staffing level of servers and cooks to sustain that expansion.
They have opened a couple of Friday nights when there were special Uptown Lexington events and the Lexington Cruise-In classic car show on the second Tuesday of each month (March through November). They will continue to open for dinner on those Tuesdays and every Friday from 4 to 8 p.m.
“When we can get our staffing level up we’d like to add Wednesday and
Thursday nights as well,” Cornell noted.
“I think people are excited to have another dining option uptown,” Bishop said.
Brooker T’s Café is open from 8 to 11 a.m. for breakfast and 11 to 3 p.m. for lunch Wednesday through Friday and brunch from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
With their extensive background in the restaurant business, Cornell and Bishop had talked about having a restaurant together one day but things didn’t fall into place until recently. Cornell sold her T&T Convenience Store in Reeds, where she operated a short-order grill, after 17 years there in
March 2021. She bought a house at Holden Beach and planned to retire there but her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she stayed to take care of her until her death. Cornell then began working part time at Café 35 in October 2021 and discovered it was for sale.
Brooke, who grew up around Southern Lunch when her mother and grandmothers all worked there and worked there for many years herself as an adult, had returned to Lexington from going to school in Arizona for a degree in occupational therapy, which she pursued after earning a B.S. degree from Western Carolina University in birth to kindergarten education.
She worked in restaurants while in college and while working as a
preschool teacher. “It’s in our blood, I guess,” Bishop noted. “I literally grew up at Southern Lunch and then I met another generation of customers when I worked at Goose and the Monkey (Brew House). I can’t shake the service industry — it’s just part of me.”
Bishop said she enjoyed going off for school but is ready to be settled down in her hometown where she is surrounded by a close-knit family and friends.
Cornell and Bishop both said they are looking to support other local businesses in their restaurant, too. They will be adding Goose and the Monkey beers and Bull City Ciderworks products to their drinks list, where most of the craft beers are from North Carolina. They are already using salad mixes from Crossings Farm in Reeds and produce from Conrad & Hinkle and the Lexington Farmer’s Market. The breakfast, lunch and brunch menus feature many of same items Café 35 offered with a few additions. One lunch addition is Cornell’s chicken salad that she made at the grill in Reeds. It’s so popular, she is also selling it by the pint and quart to take home. Another new big seller is the Brooker Bowl, a biscuit split in two, topped with two eggs, two hashbrown patties, two chicken tenders and smothered in homemade gravy.
The dinner menu, available after 4 p.m., includes a sirloin steak and a chopped sirloin steak with toppings, a maple bourbon glazed salmon filet, a grilled chicken breast plain or with toppings, chicken tenders and seafood cakes with shrimp, scallops and real crab meat. When dinner business
picks up, Cornell said she would like to add off-menu specials such as lasagna and ribs in addition to many of the same sandwiches and burgers from Café 35, Cornell noted she is working on perfecting a vegan black bean burger.
There are already a few vegetarian and vegan options as well as gluten-free buns and wraps. Homemade desserts such as banana pudding and peach cobbler are also on the menu. While Bishop used to make cakes for Southern Lunch years ago she doesn’t have time now but she has one of her grandmothers on that job.
Cornell said the bar tables and chairs in the upper dining room corner surrounded by windows and views of Main Street have been popular and have even brought people in from the street when they see people in that space, which had simply been a display window in the past.
{A former display window now allows customers to look out over Main Street in the upper dining room and bar area. Photo: Vikki Broughton Hodges/Davidson Local)
“People seem to love sitting in those windows with that view,” she noted. Cornell said the upper dining room, accessible by a small ramp, has several booths and eight seats at the bar in addition to three small tables in the window section. The cocktail menu includes brunch favorites such as Bloody Marys and mimosas, among other mixed drinks.
