Wyman World

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The restaurant business can certainly be a whirlwind. It requires wearing a different hat at any time: accounting, food preparation, marketing and personnel and human relations just to start, throw in a little human psychology and stress, and the fact that the ladies restroom toilet is overflowing. I don't think any other business requires so much of you, promising so little in return. Throw in a little historic property development (about five pieces of property per year) and you'll really have fun trying to manage your day. It's first come first serve on the crisis meter. Well that's what John and Jerri Wyman do for a living.

Each day promises you a new beginning and an indefinite end, with lots of decision-making in the meantime.

The recipe:

Six months from graduation at Southeast Missouri State University, a few months from the arrival of a new baby, no money, a big madam of an old house with no heat, add great hopes for the future of Cape's Downtown, a gallon of appreciation for historic properties and neighborhoods, throw in a ton of guts, remove common sense and deduct experience and you have Cape's finest restaurateurs in the making at ages 21 and 22.

The Wymans have been married for 14, almost 15, blissful, very busy years. They met at the very popular restaurant, Jeremiah's, in 1986. Jeremiah's in its heyday was a fabulous place to meet people and to work. They met while working, and with a first kiss in the walk-in lugging out beer kegs, a second kiss in John's historic house on Lorimier, the rest is history. Dating led to an engagement, which led to marriage in two short years with a baby on the way shortly after their first year anniversary. Wow, talk about packing it all in and starting a rollercoaster of activity.

The Wymans courtship centered around the finer things in life; antiques, old houses, their love of food and wine, and after creating scenarios in their old house around dining and entertaining, they realized their real passion was creating what Cape didn't have at the time, a restaurant with style. An eclectic eatery that symbolized their joie de vivre while becoming a serious destination and hospitality establishment was their goal. The bringing together of the sensuality of food, wine, people and music was the mission. A large, beautiful, Queen Anne style house was to be the stage. When Merriwether House came up for sale in the Downtown area, restaurants in old houses were all the rage. The Wymans snatched the house up with full intentions of turning it into the restaurant of their dreams. After moving into the house to start renovations, the couple decided they could not and would not jeopardize the integrity of this fabulous one- of-a-kind dwelling. The house literally begged for their attention and guided them carefully through the twelve-year process of renovation. Jerri laughs when she says, "We didn't have any choice, she (the house) let us know what she wanted and we were not about to do anything else. Not a single square inch hasn't been touched by us without regard to her." Not only did they do massive renovation/restoration over time, they took one bedroom of the 16 room manse and turned it into a large bathroom complete with marble shower and jacuzzi tub. Restaurant? Don't think so. On to plan B.

The location of their enterprise was carefully plotted with dual purposes: 1) to create a somewhat quirky, crazy, destination spot that would market itself because of its inexcusably bad location, 2) to take their passion regarding the surrounding neighborhoods and historic areas of town and create an interest in the property that could then begin to develop naturally because of small entrepreneurs desiring inexpensive start-up space. Their hope was that not only could the area be saved from demolition, but it would thrive once people actually realized its virtue, not to mention the rent was dirt cheap.

The final decision: Good Hope Street, formerly known as The Haarig District, currently regarded as the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. You know the part of town, the one with historic buildings, some of them falling down, others lucky to be still standing, most of those left vacant, pigeons nesting and abandoned cars on the street. The Haarig District is one of the oldest, most historic parts of town. Originally a German commercial district, it had been badly neglected and like so many other historic areas across the country was a victim of urban blight (plight?), no blight. Many of the businesses that were original to the area have gone the way of small mom & pop enterprises everywhere. Closed, out of business: the unforgivable, direct impact of large conglomerate department stores and chains penetrating communities dependent on the constant circulation of economic dollars.

Oh, and back to the Queen Anne sitting on the corner, did I mention that Murielle was born the day they moved into their new house? All packed boxes, no bed and a crazy, dingy old house with holes in the walls and floors. Jerri says "When Murielle was born, I was really ticked because John just kept popping in and out. He doesn't love his new baby, was all I could think, where could he be? Why doesn't he come to see me and Murielle?, boo hoo" (initially Murielle was supposed to be Muriel but John got ahold of the birth certificate first and jokingly says he didn't have a clue how to spell Muriel, so he did the best he could.) Anyway, back to the story. It's time to go home. John had spent two whole days finishing out a room with paint and cleaning it until it was immaculate enough to accommodate the new Wyman family member and recuperating wife. In the only way an old house can come together, it was beautiful. "We lived out of boxes most of the summer and attempted to make the house a home while legitimizing the chosen location for our restaurant. Neighbors who felt sorry for us fed us." Says Jerri jokingly.

In the meantime, they had found the perfect building for their brainchild, Mollies. Cheap, delapidated, and previously home to Al's Midtown, the Catfish & Kettle-Cooked Beef Castle of Cape Girardeau, which closed circa 1986. An original bar, which was saved from destruction during Prohibition still resides in the current Mollies. It is a beautiful tiger Mahogany and cherry characterized with cigarette burns from many infamous individuals. It really was the deciding factor of the location. It made creating a bar (& eventually, restaurant) a breeze.

Ahhh, Haarig.

Their dream was to pick up the street, make it clean, create a little oasis for people who appreciated something different, something a little eclectic and very personable. After opening the bar, their dream was to start the restaurant, buy up more of the buildings, recruit business owners and start the inevitable upswing of the business climate in Haarig. Voila! A revitalized part of town!

Mollies In Old Cape opened winter of 1989 using $9,000.00 worth of funding from good ol' Visa, MasterCard and various other financial institutions ( including one insurance company) that didn't have a clue what kind of deal they were financing.. Local banks made it clear they wouldn't loan to two "kids" with no experience in the restaurant business other than waiting tables and tending bar. And some even snickered as the two dreamers left their offices. When Mollies first opened, it was only a bar. It was open from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. with the hope of capturing the interest of swing-shift partiers and insomniacs alike. John and Jerri were the only employees, so figure that one out. Two years of no sleep.

The day they opened, John reminisces "being down" (slang for more debits than credits in the check register) about $200.00. They phoned all their friends and patrons of former establishments at which they had been employed, and in the crowd came. At the end of the evening, their total intake was $300.00, just enough to cover the checkbook and buy more beer for the following day. And so it worked for a full year, just like that. This dovetails with a story about the house, though, which was turning out to be a cantankorous old biddy. Busy with their new enterprise, the Wymans completely overlooked the fact that they were about to embark on a winter with no heat in their house. After buying their home, every single radiator in the house burst in an unexpected late spring freeze. Luckily the couple had homeowners insurance that covered the damage, but most of the insurance proceeds were sunk into opening Mollies.

" We thought we had plenty of time to collect some money (after all, the restaurant business is soooo lucrative, don't you know?") Jerri laughs. "We moved in the last day of May of '89. October comes around really quick when you don't have heat. We literally crawled out of the bed, saw our frosty breath in the air and would freeze until we got our clothes on, in fact we'd still freeze after we had our clothes on. We were living in a refrigerator. It made going to work at a warm, cozy little bar on Good Hope a real pleasure. I remember crawling into a cab one morning with Murielle bundled up from the cold. A teeny old lady in the cab turned to me and said " You shouldn't have that little baby out in this cold, she'll get sick!!" I wanted to laugh maniacally and scare her into submission, but, you know, I was nice. I didn't bother to go into detail about how we'd just left a freezer and were actually about to spend a very pleasant day in a warm environment. Incidentally that turned out to be one of the harshest winters in Missouri history, but it made Mollies on Good Hope a haven for us. It became like home."

The following year, after establishing a track record for the bar, they located a bank that was willing to loan against the building for a new kitchen. "We would really like to give this bank credit for helping us, because they were really taking a leap of faith," says John. " I won't mention any names, but we had since purchased the building on Good Hope, had cleaned up the apartments upstairs and were renting them and the building was showing a nice profit. The owner had taken the paper back on the building and this bank stepped in, refinanced the building for us and helped us with enough to build out our kitchen." The N'Orleans had just burned and the Wymans figured (in all our infinite wisdom!, says John) if there was ever a time to take advantage of the market and try to establish a seafood and steak restaurant, this would be it. The kitchen was in a tiny room at the back of the building with a window that looked out on the parking lot. Full of used equipment including an oven with a door that would fall off, ("we finally nailed it shut one night.") the kitchen was ready to go. Over the summer it was a regular event to record temperatures of 130degrees F in this area and there was no such thing as air conditioning. In fact, patrons who fondly remember the place will tell you there wasn't any adequate air conditioning in the front of the house either. John and Jerri regularly took turns cooking after it became apparent that no one was able to withstand the heat or produce the kind of food that Mollies is now famous for. They have since delegated such an important part of their business to talented chefs, but in the beginning, it was just the two and various others who came and went.

In order to create more interest in the location and to try to build up this area of town, the Wymans started plans for their next location. It was to be Major Tom's, pretty hip nightclub bar with an aeronautical theme. Top Gun and Tom Cruise, drinks and fun. Alas, this did not come to pass.... something about liquor licenses and churches that no longer exist. In retrospect, everything happens for the best. So, desperate to continue the momentum that Mollies had started and some other businesses were depending on, the Wymans took over the space next door and opened Mollies into it with a casual, retro joint called the Midtown Grill. The Midtown was a blast and immediately became a favorite among locals. The Wymans will tell you that the worst part of moving from Good Hope to Mollies' current location on Spanish Street was closing the Midtown Grill.

Summers on Good Hope became hard, not only because a large part of the clientele was out of town over the summer, but Good Hope became a highly trafficked area with drug deals and street fights part of the every day drill. But this was also the year that rap music made its debut. Cars laden with people and rap music blaring out and shaking the windows of the small cafe made summers unbearable for guests and employees. Even though Mollies never experienced any problems indicative of a downtrodden neighborhood, customer perception ruled. It was time to move or become a restaurant statistic; seven out of ten restaurants fail in the first three years. It is important to mention that the demolition of ten very important historic buildings on the street didn't help matters much. "When the Farmers & Merchants Bank on the corner of Sprigg & Good Hope was demolished and supplanted with a metal building, there just wasn't enough left to visualize the revitalized community we had imagined," says John.

Drs. Bert and Maryanne Kellerman, good friends and customers, had just bought the Campbell Mattress Warehouse on Spanish and Independence intending to renovate it for office and gallery space. The Wymans approached them about relocating Mollies to the downtown. Their building would be a perfect match. The deal was done and over the summer of 1993, Mollies moved to Spanish Street, the Midtown Grill closed and the Wymans purchased the piece of property directly across from New Mollies for an open-air grill & bar, the Bel Air.

Mollies on Spanish was an instant success and became the coolest place in town to see and to be seen.

The next summer the Bel Air opened using revenues from Mollies. The Bel Air was best know for its jerk chicken and cold beer on draft and the casualness of the restaurant made it accessible to a large group of people who enjoyed the deck and the tropical atmosphere.

In the meantime, the Wymans became very interested in their downtown residential area and began to purchase pieces of property they believed would be complementary to their approach. The restaurants actually became an engine for promoting the downtown areas, both residential and commercial. Soon a nice little circle formed with employees needing living space, the Wymans buying and renovating houses of historic integrity and the restaurant going great guns. A new business plan, (actually two) was conceived and the gestation period for Bella Italia and Europa's began. Although it would be a while before either concept would get off the ground, and other things would pop up to take precedence in the couple's mind, the seeds were planted.

In the summer of 1995, area businessman Dennis Stockard, contacted the Wymans about the possible purchase of his restaurant, the N'Orleans. Mr. Stockard is best known for bringing Appleby's to the Cape market and for saving the N'Orleans Restaurant, Cape's dining tradition, after a serious fire gutted the entire building but for the four exterior walls. After much deliberation, the Wyman's decided they could incorporate the N'Orleans into their business mix. Actually, it seemed to be advantageous to mainstream the two restaurants in the Cape market, keeping the identity of each separate but equal, and keeping fine-dining competition at bay. On October 1, 1995, the deal was closed and John and Jerri became the proud owners of the oldest existing restaurant in Southeast Missouri, the Royal N'Orleans, established circa 1954.

Taking over the N'Orleans proved to be a real challenge as the restaurant had a 40+ year track record, was losing a substantial amount of money each year, (yikes) and folks really had a preconceived notion of what role this restaurant played in the community. Change was inevitable as things that don't change die, and change was going to be hard...incremental, experimental and downright serendipitous but essential for the continuation of this Cape Girardeau dining tradition. The first things that happened were the juxtaposition of Mollies and the N'Orleans. It was necessary to keep both of them quality and service oriented, while creating an ambiance unique to the two. The N'Orleans was positioned as a Creole Steakhouse with an emphasis on its history and Mollies was positioned as a unique, European bistro. A challenge, indeed, especially for two restaurants that had been fiercely competing for market share. After just a few months, the N'Orleans became a profitable restaurant with a mind of its own. A different employee base, a Creole-style menu with an emphasis on steaks and fresh seafood, and ambiance galore helped to maintain the difference between the two restaurants and created loyal clientele for each one. The Wymans got bored...again. Out pop the business plans.

After many years of customers requesting items that the Wymans use daily in their restaurants, John and Jerri thought it was time for Europa's, a concept built around a European market. Fresh artisan cheese, homemade French and Italian breads, gourmet to go, cappuccino and espresso and a huge array of imported foodstuffs made Europa's a one-of-a-kind concept. It was fabulous. The Wyman's also saw the opportunity to renovate a building with very little street appeal and give a former Dollar General Store a new life. While Europa's was grand, it was also a bit precipitous for Cape and after two years, Europa's morphed into Bella Italia, the second business plan. The Wymans blew the dust off the business plan, picked themselves up by the bootstraps and set off in a direction they know very well, the restaurant business. Within two weeks Bella Italia was born, and fed on fettuccine with marinara sauce, the baby has grown by leaps and bounds. John and Jerri marvel at the difference in clientele between the two restaurants and are impressed with the number of people who drive downtown to take advantage of the large portions of immigrant Italian that are placed before them. The Wymans have been approached by restaurant groups to franchise the concept and are seriously considering it, although the dynamic duo will tell you the most enjoyment they get is seeing Cape Girardeau's Downtown area continue to develop and flourish through efforts like theirs.

And some efforts those have been. In the last few years alone, the Wymans have renovated seven pieces of historic property for themselves and for others, have closed one business, opened another, sold Mollies, bought a five story office building and executed a much-needed face lift on the N'Orleans restaurant, as well as raise their daughter, Murielle, 13 who is turning out to be a big help in the restaurants. The Wymans laugh when people ask them if Murielle will take over the restaurants some day. They admit readily that the choice is hers, but they would prefer if she went into some other line of work. "She did cry when we sold Mollie's. She felt like it was hers after all these years." says Jerri. But, she reminds us, they've been working very hard to be able to afford a decent education for the young lady.

If you ask the Wymans why they do what they do, they will tell you that when opportunity knocks, answer the door. They will also tell you that creating a unique area that they want to live in and a quality of life that isn't readily available have been the modus operandi of their efforts. In order to have it, they have had to create it themselves. Neighborhoods full of families, people walking Downtown to and from healthy, viable businesses rich with unique shopping and offerings are what they see on the horizon for Downtown Cape. While it can be overwhelming at times, they hope to continue in the same direction for many years, helping Downtown to appreciate by helping people appreciate Downtown.