Partner Spotlight: The Secret Garden Café and Gallery

The Secret Garden Café and Gallery re-opened under the new ownership of Sue Markko and Tom Bushery in April of this year. A neighbor to Abe Lincoln in Library Park, the business is located at 5925 6th Ave. A in Downtown Kenosha. It’s the first venture of this kind for the husband and wife team. What drew them to open a café and gallery? “We got drunk,” Tom half-jokingly says. Yet they also had a vision, and so far that vision is working for them.
 
When Tom and Sue took over the business, they expanded the hours to include weekends and breakfast. They also expanded the menu, which is described as healthy without being radical. Some items were kept – including the deviled egg that accompanies sandwich orders (making many people very happy!). Perhaps the biggest difference is The Secret Garden is no longer just a café. It’s also an art gallery, exhibiting artwork from more than twenty local artists. 100% of the sales proceeds go directly to the artists.
 
Tom says he and his wife “wanted to open a little local artists’ art gallery downtown.” They didn’t think it would work in this economy. And so came the idea to support an art gallery with café revenue. He says it works; “We’re accomplishing what we really wanted.”
 
20% of their customers come from out of town, and a lot of people in Northern Illinois are talking about them and visiting them, Tom says. He explains Illinois residents “love Wisconsin like crazy”, and his business reminds them of upscale little places in Illinois. He’s found that Kenosha in general is a great meeting spot for people from Milwaukee and Chicago to meet in the middle, and he has gained business from that. He credits the KACVB’s website and the Yelp review site for bringing business his way.
 
Tom wants to offer something so unique that they will draw people to Downtown Kenosha who don’t live here, and who will then check out the rest of the area. He is very passionate about promoting downtown. He offers his prime storefront window to a different downtown business each month, no strings attached.
 
“We like to support as many businesses as we can” he says, explaining how they diversify who they do business with. The breads come from Kenosha HarborMarket, GFS, and soon, Paielli's Bakery. Organic, fresh farm eggs come from Yuppie Hill Farm. Tom says this makes a difference for the frittata and strata that he personally makes himself. The frittata recipe came from a retired Kenosha policeman’s family.

The coffees are very fresh, coming from a private roaster in North Chicago who calls each Tuesday, roasts the supply on Thursday morning, and delivers each Thursday afternoon. Tom feels it is “undoubtedly the very best coffee in Kenosha.”

The tea comes from Tiesta, an Illinois company, and The Secret Garden now sells bags of it. They also sell the unique tea brewer it is served in. The tea and water are mixed in a small tea pot, which the customer sets over the cup, releasing the mix directly into the cup. It’s important to keep an eye on what you are doing, and are prepared to lift the brewer back up (or your cup runneth over, as it did for a KACVB employee).
 
They do a lot of their own baking, Tom says, including their own scones, cheesecake and biscotti. They also make most of the muffins and soups. Tom recalls when a group of Italian ladies dined at The Secret Garden, with one saying she makes her own biscotti. She tried theirs, and said “this is good.” The other ladies then tried it, and purchased for home. Another customer once told him of the biscotti, it’s “done enough to dip, but not too done to chip”.
 
Tom is a familiar face on the local arts scene. He has been a Lemon Street Gallery member since 2005, and assists with its Clayground – open ceramic studio program. He has been a potter “since some time in the last century” he says – working under the name H.L. Potter. The joke is he is the hairless potter, as opposed to Harry Potter. The soup cups and coffee creamers are handmade at The Secret Garden – his creations. His saucers and plates will be added in the near future. “We’re trying to do something that is so incredibly unique”, he says, that it will cause people to talk about them and visit them even more.
 
Popular with customers is the Grow Your Own Secret Garden Salad option. Tom says people are crazy about it, and there is less wastage as customers are only getting what they ask for. Produce is shopped for every one to two days. There is a card to fill out, in which you first choose from mixed baby greens, spinach, or romaine. Next you choose how your garden grows – with red onion, button mushrooms, boiled egg, apples, pears, and so on. The options are numerous. Next, you choose from honey roasted turkey, grilled chicken breast, baked ham, tuna/chicken/egg salad. The ‘Say Cheese’ portion is full of options, followed by such toppings as sunflower seeds, walnuts, dates, craisins, and many more. Last comes the dressing of your choice.
 
The café comfortably seats up to 28 customers and free Wi-Fi is available. The place is essentially broken into three separate rooms open to the public. There’s the two-level front dining area. There’s a back room that is now the pottery room, where art is also on display and Tom works on his glazing. Then there’s the middle room – a lounge of sorts. “The Boys’ Room”, as Tom calls it. A group of men enjoy gathering here each morning for coffee and to solve the world’s problems, as Tom describes it. When the weather is nice they sit outside. They’ve put their seal of approval on the espresso, describing it as even better than what’s served in Italy. There’s also a gift shop area where customers walk in, offering works from local crafters and Tom’s pottery.
 
The Secret Garden’s logo holds special meaning for Tom and Sue. 10 of their 11 grandchildren (a twelfth is on the way) each drew a flower. The flowers were then combined into a logo. A local artist drew her own interpretation of the logo, matching it very closely, for a wall mural. The flowers were also re-created in fused glass that is hung in the window. Most of their grandkids live over 400 miles away, so by having their flowers on display, it’s like having them there with them, Tom says.
 
Accommodations can be made for groups and for events outside normal operating hours. Normal hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. They occasionally open in the evenings for special events, such as the recent Lightin’ Up Festival (11/25/11) in Downtown Kenosha. They participate with specials during the day on Second Saturdays. And a senior citizens day with specials will soon be added to the week.

Here are two more compliments The Secret Garden has received: Visitors from Australia for a car show this summer wrote in the guest book The Secret Garden’s coffee was the best they had had in the U.S. And a couple from Oxford, England enjoyed their royal breakfast tea and said “this is what tea is supposed to taste like,” Tom recalls.
 
Be sure to stop in The Secret Garden Café and Gallery, whether for a delicious dessert, a scrumptious soup, or just to try that snazzy tea brewer. Oh, and Tom believes in two hour lunches, and eating dessert first. Who can’t support that?
 
For more information: (262) 657-1884, www.secretgardenkenosha.com/