For six and a half years, patrons have been checking the box next to “clean eating” at Grafton’s Check Please Café.
The eatery offers fully customizable menu options with “build your own” items and an all-day menu.
“You get to check the boxes,” said owner Tara Vruvas. “Four of my top 10 sellers are build your own. That’s what people want to do.”
Build your own options are available for salads, sandwiches, omelets, sundaes and more.
Some ingredients for those customized items include additional fees, and regular menu items such as stroganoff and paprikash also are available.
An inability to make substitutions at restaurants is a pet peeve for Vruvas.
“A lot of people have that as a hurdle with restaurants,” she said. “If someone wants to eat your food, you should be thrilled.
“And you have to focus on what customers want, not what you want.”
Cooking to order is challenging for the restaurant staff, but Vruvas is proud that most orders are fulfilled in fewer than 20 minutes.
Vruvas prides herself on providing healthy options with no additives and plenty of choices for those avoiding gluten, carbohydrates or allergens.
“We can make things from scratch with a very homemade feeling,” she said. “I did not want to operate that way where you feel like you’re compromising your health when you eat out.”
Check Please Café uses no artificial sweeteners — especially high fructose corn syrup — liquid butter alternative or MSG.
Vruvas makes many of her own seasonings to avoid those ingredients.
Most often, real butter is used, but dairy free oils are available.
“I don’t want you to eat it if it’s not good for you. I feel like the people who care about that really appreciate it,” she said, adding that finding suppliers is challenging, but she focuses on local or regional vendors as much as possible. “I’m picky about what I will use and won’t use.”
The café uses non homogenized milk from Buckeye Country Creamery, coffee from Red Cedar in Berea and honey from Dubesa Apiary right in Grafton.
Vruvas and her husband, Mike, met when both were managers for a large national retail company.
When she “hit a ceiling” with the company in 2016, they decided to open a business.
Recently, Mike Vruvas was able to leave the company, also.
The Vruvases know the restaurant business is considered volatile, but Tara Vruvas doesn’t believe there’s a secret formula.
“We successfully executed someone else’s business model for a number of years, why not do our own?” she said. “I like food; the future plans for Check Please Café are to stay Check Please Café.
“We’re the right size for the town, and it’s been great.”
Check Please Café runs its specials on a monthly basis.
For October, the special will be Salisbury steak.
In November, they will offer a traditional Thanksgiving feast and in December, the popular Bourbon Grill returns.
Check Please Café is located at 597 Main St. in Grafton and is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., daily.
