New restaurant serving breakfast and lunch opens on West Chestnut

Tawnie Wilson

Hatch & Harvest Cafe is located at 2833 W. Chestnut Expressway.

A new breakfast and lunch cafe has opened at 2833 W. Chestnut Expressway in the space formerly occupied by The Phoenix Diner Bar and Grill as well as Missouri Mike’s BBQ.

Hatch & Harvest Cafe LLC held its soft opening yesterday, said 24-year-old owner Shkodran “Donny” Veliu. Today is Hatch & Harvest’s first full day open to the public. He said his goal was to create a casual cafe, and that being a restaurateur is in his family background.

“I’m a first-generation American,” Veliu told SBJ this morning, adding that Hatch & Harvest is the first venture he’s taken on as sole owner. “My family’s been in the restaurant business for many, many years. My parents came from Albania. My grandpa was a dishwasher. Long story short, he worked his way all the way up to being a restaurant owner. … So yeah, it’s in my blood, and we’ve just been doing this all our lives.”

Veliu said Hatch & Harvest’s soft opening went very well: “We had a lot of friends and family come and surprise us, and we even turned the open sign on and there were a few people that just trickled in.”

Veliu said the menu was intended to be “pretty casual” with a number of “classic plates” including omelets along with “newer kind of style” dishes such as multigrain pancakes and the El Tapia breakfast bowl, which is comprised of chorizo, jalapeno, tomato, green pepper, onion and queso served over crispy home fries and topped with avocado and two eggs cooked any style.

According to the restaurant’s Facebook page, Hatch & Harvest also has a kids’ menu with breakfast items including pancakes, a cheese omelet and or an egg with choice of bacon or various types of sausage, along with a lunch menu of grilled cheese, mac & cheese, chicken tenders or any half-sized club sandwich.

Of his cafe’s location, Veliu said he grew up in western Springfield about 10 minutes from Hatch & Harvest’s location. He attended school at Willard and currently lives in southwest Springfield.

“So I’m very familiar with the west side. I always wanted to come back and kind of do something here eventually,” Veliu said. “I drive by here all the time, and I saw the building was empty and I saw a for rent sign, and I said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna give them an email. … I came in I liked what I saw and I just took it over. I was like, let’s do it.”

Veliu said Hatch & Harvest employs 10-12 workers at this time. He said his investment in the business so far is between $80,000 and $100,000. He signed a three-year lease with Westway Shopping Center LLC, declining to disclose other terms of the deal.

Veliu emphasized that he has a problem-solver’s mentality and that undergirds his approach to taking care of his guests.

“I really love talking to guests,” he said. “I really like hearing feedback. I really like fixing problems. I hate when a guest leaves unhappy and I don’t hear about it.”

He also said he’d made efforts to keep prices “pretty low.”

“I kept it that way because we’re just trying to be fair to everybody and give everybody a chance to come try us out, and just look forward to taking care of everybody,” Veliu said.