Mary’s Morning Mix Up may sound like a FM radio drive time show, but it’s actually a new breakfast/lunch spot in Brookfield. The restaurant, which is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., quietly opened on Jan. 1 at 9132 31st St. in the space occupied for the past decade by Nick’s Breakfast House.
It’s a cozy storefront place, with 40 seats. But it won’t stay small for long, says owner Mary Spino.
“It’s going to be something no one’s ever seen; it’s something I’ve wanted for 14 years,” said Spino, who until about two-and-a-half years ago was a partner at Le Petit Café in Westchester.
Spino is coy when asked to describe her plans.
“It’s top secret,” she said.
But the plans include more than the current restaurant space, which is at the eastern end of a long under-utilized strip mall just east of Maple Avenue. At some point this summer Spino hopes to open a 100-seat Mary’s Morning Mix Up restaurant in the western-most storefront space and convert the present eatery into Petey Jalapeno, a taco/burrito/torta joint catering to diners from lunch to midnight.
Between the two restaurants, Spino wants to open a bakery that will double as a gift shop, where people can buy the types of trinkets they’ll see in Mary’s Morning Mix Up.
That’s about as far as Spino will go in giving you an idea of what she has planned, other than to remind you that at Le Petit Café, the place was known for celebrating holidays with a flair. Servers would dress up as elves during the Christmas season and on Mother’s Day would don housecoats and curlers.
Spino, a Hinsdale resident, was no stranger to the spot she now operates as Mary’s Morning Mix Up. She had eaten there when it was Nick’s and after a two-week negotiating period last November closed the deal to take over the space. She wanted to be open before Christmas, but delays forced the opening to be postponed until Jan. 1.
Mary’s Morning Mix Up — the canopy with the “Nick’s” name on it will be changed soon, she said — serves breakfast standards and skillets. For lunch the restaurant serves sandwiches, burgers, wraps, salads and soup along with a daily special.
Asked why she didn’t wait until she could open all three businesses at once as a complete unit, Spino says she just didn’t want to wait that long. She’d been out of the restaurant business for more than two years and was itching to get back.
“I love doing this,” she said.
