0312 Best Of - Olexa
Olexa’s, Best Dessert & Best Ladies’ Lunch Spot. Photos by Brittney Harrison
Olexa’s Catering Cafe & Cakes will be hosting a visit from America’s Best Restaurants in early October 2022.
America’s Best Restaurants, a national media and marketing company focusing on local, independently-owned restaurants, will bring its ABR Roadshow to the restaurant. Filming at the restaurant will take place Oct. 4 from 9 a.m. to noon.
Popular dishes will be highlighted, along with an extensive on-camera interview with owner Diane Olexa about the restaurant’s special place in the community. The episode will be aired on social media channels at a later date.
Olexa got her start in the food business nearly two decades ago, doing bridal catering with her mother. The cafe opened after wedding guests would ask “ ‘Where’s your restaurant? We want to eat your food every day,’ ” Olexa recalls. “That’s when the cafe was born.”
Once the cafe opened, servers would warm cake slices for brides-to-be to try so they wouldn’t have to eat cold cake. This turned out to be a turning point for the cafe.
“The waitresses were leaving it in [the microwave] too long and it was being served warm,” Olexa says. “So then it went around town that I was serving warm buttercream cake, before I even knew it, and then it became all the rage. They were coming for the cake and staying for lunch.”
The cafe has a French-outdoor-street-cafe feel. Cafe tables and chairs are surrounded by street lamps and faux building facades along one wall. Strings of lights overhead add ambience, along with French music piped in over speakers.
“You feel like you’re walking into a little courtyard in France,” says Olexa.
Popular menu items that may be highlighted on the episode include quiche, crepes, and the Savory Trio, a half sandwich, salad, and soup.
Olexa’s cakes have been featured in numerous bridal magazines; additionally, the cafe has won several awards for best luncheon, most recently Best Ladies Lunch by Mountain Brook magazine in 2020.
For more information on the show, visit americasbestrestaurants.com.
