Cafe nourishes body and soul
Literally. In fact, that's what runs the place. There's no price board and no cash register. Just a simple brown basket near the water jug where diners deposit their cash, no questions asked.
Yet Denise Cerreta didn't set out to turn a business model on its head when she opened the tiny cafe downtown, on the ground floor of a building that's seen better days.
She was catering to students at the Utah College of Massage Therapy and residents of the area around 300 East between South Temple and 100 South, serving up sandwiches, burritos and nachos, along with the coffee she had originally envisioned would be popular in her location.
Seven years of previous work in the same building as an acupuncturist with her own clinic had paid the bills, but she wasn't satisfied with it anymore.
"I felt like I had reached my spiritual ceiling in that vocation," she said, "and I had to move on for my own growth."
She needed a change, and the cafe offered her the chance to interact with people in a whole new way. But even with a bustling crowd of diners most days, there was still something missing in her soul as she re-fashioned her lifestyle and career.
"I did it at first out of pure selfishness," she says, remembering the boredom that had set in. "I'm not a robot, and I decided I wasn't going to cook the same thing every day."
The change seemed satisfying at first, as she switched to organic foods and cooked up whatever soups and salads and quiches fit with the ingredients she could procure on any given day. But when 95 percent of her business evaporated along with the menu, and she was working three shifts a day, seven days a week, she began to wonder.
After a couple of months, and a lot of mental anguish, she had an encounter with the divine. She calls it inspiration from a higher power, her own "Field of Dreams" experience, where she "just knew" if she followed it, customers would come.
She can't say if she actually heard a voice, or if it was simply by inspiration. But a past experience with an inner voice she failed to heed, warning her of danger, resulted in a severe injury. After that, she had promised herself if she ever heard the voice again, she would follow it.
Yet what she heard startled even the free spirit inside her.
It told her to get rid of her price board and cash register and let customers decide how much to pay for their food.
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