Friendship, Common Interests Led to Creativity at Juniper 61

Success forged in partnership at Cafe Lulu in Bay View inspired duo to seek bigger venue in Tosa.

Opportunities can spring from the most unlikely places. Cameryne Roberts met Sarah Jonas while dating one of Jonas’ friends. The dating relationship faded but the friendship between the two young women remained – and flourished. Eventually, their friendship evolved into a business partnership. They opened Cafe LuLu, a successful eatery in Bay View. In 2008, they opened a second restaurant, Juniper 61, in Wawautosa. “We are both from the area," Roberts remembered. "When I met Sarah, she was in culinary school at MATC and had done a lot of restaurant work. I was working in the corporate offices at Koss.” Roberts decided to make a career change. Taking a chapter from Jonas’s book, Roberts started working part time in a restaurant and enrolled…

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Bites Nearby

Breakfast is Served – and Lunch, Too, at Maxfield’s Pancake House

Tosa couple opens a second restaurant, this time in their own community.

Gus and Nicky Zarmakoupis saw a niche and decided to fill it. The couple opened a Maxfield's Pancake House restaurant in Fox Point in 2009 that serves breakfast and lunch, but when they were looking to have a good breakfast in Wauwatosa, where they live, they found the choices were limited. “I would talk to people in the community, and they were going out of the area when they went out for breakfast," Nicky recalled. "Gus said, ‘I think there’s an opportunity here.’” In August, Gus and Nicky opened Maxfield’s second location, at 2727 N. Mayfair Road, just northwest of Mayfair Mall. “There are offices, schools, the mall – all nearby, and we’re on a bus line, so the location seemed to work,” Nicky said. The Wauwatosa residents moved from the…

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