Where else can you go to enjoy a breakfast buffet or a fried chicken dinner and then visit farm animals, ride a carousel and play mini golf?
Years ago, Magnolia Café and Bakery was a tea room. Now it’s a fully staffed restaurant and bakery, with all proceeds supporting the non-profit Lambs Farm in Libertyville, which serves people with developmental disabilities. The restaurant is one of four businesses run by participants and employees of Lambs Farm.
Manager Elaine Bock said the restaurant changes the menu once a year, and all of the staff members present ideas and recipes for items they might want to roll out.
“We do it as a team,” said Bock, who’s been with Magnolia for more than 30 years. “The item might be a repeat, maybe something we’ve had on there before.”
One of those repeats is the taco salad, which has been rotated in as a blue plate special and will be added back to the menu.
Bock described the Fit Meal program, featuring 500-calorie meals that are designed by Lambs Farm’s in-house dietitian. “It’s a way to help staff and customers, many of whom are our employees, eat and be healthy,” she said. “Our dietitian really goes to great lengths to design these items.”
A sample week in the Fit Meal program is skinny grilled cheese, broccoli soup, vegetable gumbo over brown rice, turkey burgers, roasted vegetable pita, spaghetti squash au gratin, Greek yogurt chicken salad with broth soup, fiesta egg burrito and avocado, mozzarella and tomato panini. Items change weekly.
Popular items on the regular menu include the Magnolia grilled cheese, which blends melted Swiss and American cheese, hickory smoked bacon and sliced tomatoes on grilled sourdough bread, encrusted with Parmesan cheese, plus the classic Cobb, specialty Caesar salad and Magnolia chopped salad.
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Bock also mentioned the black bean burger, “which is not a burger at all, but a vegetarian burger, and it’s quite spicy with provolone and avocado.”
Magnolia’s mission is to train its participants – who make up about half of the staff members – for work in the community. They learn skills such as prep work, cleaning or bussing tables.
“What makes us special are the participants in our program,” Bock said. “You could come in here with your family and interact with them, and then three years later come back and they’ll remember you. I can be having a bad day and I come in and they can change my whole day.”
Pricing: Breakfast: Café omelets and skillets are $6.95 for veggie omelet and $8.95 for the heartland skillet. Café specialties from $3.50 for the junior ranch hand to $6.95 for biscuits and gravy. Savory sweet morning from $2.95 for short stack to $7.95 for apple cinnamon French toast. Weekend breakfast buffet from 8-11 a.m., $6.95 for adults, $3.95 for children 2-10, younger are free.
Lunch: Appetizers from $4.99 for Magnolia potato chips to $6.99 for Wisconsin cheese curds. Fresh greens and soups from $1.99 for cup of homemade soup of the day to $8.99 for Magnolia chopped salad. Specialty sandwiches from $6.99 for quesadillas to $8.99 for Northshore turkey wrap. Burgers and chicken from $7.99. Signature Flatbreads from $5.99. Kids’ breakfast meals from $3.95. Fit Meal program meals for $5.95. Weekend fried chicken for $10.95 for a half chicken.
Hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Magnolia Café and Bakery is at Lambs Farm at 14245 W. Rockland Road, Libertyville. Contact 847-362-5050 or go to www.lambsfarm.org/business-attractions/magnolia-cafe-bakery/
Shonda Talerico Dudlicek is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.