The tidy white and blue exterior of Buds and Bowls Flower Shop Café at the Lawrenceville Inn hints at a quaint small town restaurant.
But with a flower shop and café downstairs and a yoga studio and a game room upstairs, all furnished with wooden antiques and heirlooms from owner Betsy Hunt’s relatives, it is more quirky than quaint.
“There’s a lot of energy in this combination of things,” said Cindy Flynn, floral arranger at the café. “The mood we were going for was a very positive, spirited energy—a mood where you’d feel welcome and relaxed and happy to be around pretty things and lovely tasting food.”
Combining a flower shop with a café was natural for Flynn and Betsy Hunt, as they both enjoy flowers and food, and especially both at once.
“We liked the idea of enjoying something pretty while eating,” said Flynn. “When you have parties, people like little flower arrangements to look at while eating—so it just made sense to us to mix the two in a little cafe.”
Hunt bought the Lawrenceville Inn in 2001 and operated an upscale French bistro inside for five years. She then decided to change directions and leased the space out. The most recent tenant was Dennis Foy, who opened his Dennis Foy Restaurant in the space in Oct. 2009.
Hunt took back the building last July and opened Buds and Bowls on Nov. 29.
She wanted the experience to be different from that of the upscale French bistro.
“It was too white-glove,” she said. “I wanted somewhere where people could feel loved, where they could feel at home.
“I just want college kids to come here, lay on the couch, play some board games, eat some good food and chill out.”
Hunt has another objective, however, in opening the café: to change how people eat.
“When I was growing up, dessert wasn’t an every day thing. It was a treat—maybe an ice cream cone once a week,” she said. “Now it’s a daily thing.”
In the 1970s, the U.S. government launched an anti-fat campaign. Hunt blames this policy for spikes in heart disease and diabetes over the past 40 years.
“I think that’s a problem,” she said. “I don’t believe that fats make you fat. I’ve never subscribed to the low-fat, no-fat diet.”
With this philosophy in mind, Hunt designed the menu of Buds and Bowls Flower shop to feature foods with their entire fat content, or “foods as God made them,” she said, rather than opting to spike her cooking with sweeteners and other unnatural products.
With soups, quiche, salads, hamburgers and gluten free baked goods on the menu, Hunt is not one to shy away from any of the essential food groups. There is one ingredient, however, that she avoids: gluten. Hunt has celiac disease, which means she is gluten intolerant. So she’s tailored her cooking to creating naturally gluten free foods, and when she can’t, great gluten substitutes.
Hunt said that she wanted to create a safe place for people with gluten allergies, but that’s not meant to alienate people who can tolerate gluten.
“It’s really for everyone,” she said. “It’s just marking a place where celiacs can come where it’s safe.”
While the gluten-free menu will remain constant, Buds and Bowls is an evolving space. It began as a flower shop café. Now, a yoga studio sits upstairs, and a lounge with board games and flat screen televisions are on their way. Flynn said that they’re always open to new ideas.
“There are lots of people going in and out every day—there’s a community energy,” she said. “So I think it can develop depending on who comes in with another cool idea.”
Buds and Bowls is located in the Lawrenceville Inn at 2691 Main Street in Lawrenceville. Business hours are from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Phone: (609) 896-0569. On the Web: budsandbowls.com.
Buds and Bowls owner Betsy Hunt stands in one of the casual dining rooms in the new cafe. (Staff photo by Alexandra Yearly.)
A quiche made of tomato
