MADE On Multi-Cultural Montgomery
WORDS Natilee McGruder PHOTO Jon Kohn
One early Wednesday morning, I meet Janet at D’Road Café, in the same shopping center as Virginia College and Mr. G’s, off the Atlanta Highway between Frazier Church and Bell Road. She greets me in Spanish as she quickly finishes mopping and then proceeds to wipe down the counters and tables. “Quieres tomar un café?” she asks me through the flurry of activity. I decline coffee and at her recommendation opt for “jugo de kiwi”, a simple smoothie with the sole ingredients being blended kiwis, ice and a dash of sugar, which tasted like the most delicious, creamy fruit smoothie. After heating up some homemade rolls for us, Janet is finally able to sit down for the interview.
A few days away from 60 at the time of the interview, Janet Malpartida is spry and vivacious, an animated speaker who fills our lively conversation with sharp wit and laughter. She was often in trouble as a child, “for talking too much,” she confesses with a mischievous smile. When she was 12, her mother threatened to send her from their native Venezuela to the United States if she didn’t behave, and so it came to be that Janet learned Americanized English while staying with her uncle in Chicago. She stayed just long enough to learn the language and some of the culture but soon returned home after the devastating 1974 earthquake in Caracas.
As Caracas rebuilt itself, Janet continued her studies and eventually graduated with a degree in tourism from the Instituto Universitario de Nuevas Profesiones. Her reputation as an excellent tour guide led to a colleague contacting her about an opportunity to work on a cruise ship, taking care of every need of valued passengers as they sailed around the world. She agreed and turned a two-week internship (during which that same colleague attempted to illegally pocket her pay) into 14 years of dedicated and acknowledged service aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, a 1,777 passenger ocean liner based out of Southampton, England, with regular transatlantic service to New York as well as world cruises. Janet found her calling, taking care of her clientele while gaining an invaluable education with 64 countries visited and countless experiences gained. She was prized so highly by her employer that on the rare occasion that she took off in order to take her mother on a 42-day cruise around the Mediterranean, the top brass at headquarters refused to let her pay.
When her husband died in a plane accident, Janet took her baby daughter to Florida where she met her current husband of 10 years. They eventually settled in Montgomery where Janet had the vision of creating a coffee shop. Her dream became more solid when her brother, who had followed the family to Montgomery a year later, agreed to do the construction for D’Road Café while his employer did the plumbing and Janet the art and decoration. At the time she set up the coffee shop two years ago, her daughter was in 8th grade and home schooled, now she is at LAMP and looking towards college. Janet figured that, “maybe if I sell this coffee, maybe it will give me enough money for my daughter’s future.”
One of Janet’s biggest challenges financially is to reach her capacity of 24 customers everyday for lunch and dinner. Culturally, Janet notes that people who like fried food are disappointed with her healthy home cooked fare, as are those who can’t wrap their head around the fact that neither she nor her food is Mexican. She says that some people who drop in don’t want to experience new things: they think they that since they know one “Mexican” place, they know them all. Janet uses fresh herbs and sea salt in her cooking, always buys the freshest meat and produce and tries to buy food that is organic and responsibly raised.
After two years of surviving with no money behind her, sometimes she wants to close: a large catering order cancelled for a small operation like D’Road Café can be suicide, but Janet holds on to her unshakeable faith. Little by little she has been putting her business together, slowly adding to the menu and while she can’t say that she is currently turning a profit, all her equipment has been paid for and she makes enough to stay open. She does not worry and she will not fear; her family and her bible class at Frazier help her to maintain her conviction to stick with her dream. Eventually she is looking to relocate to downtown or Old Cloverdale where she feels her unique offerings might be better received. She wants a better location but not necessarily a bigger space: she is determined to maintain an authentic Latin environment where she can sit and talk to her customers, get to know their favorite order and create dishes for them off the menu. As one Yelper described it, D’Road Café is like coming to your grandmother’s to eat, if your grandmother was Venezuelan.
One thing Janet would love to see in Montgomery is more encouragement and activities for younger people. She notes that old ways are on their way out, slowly but surely, and that even though sometimes breaking into Montgomery society can be challenging when your name and parents are not legacy, she freely acknowledges that it is a much improved city compared to 10 years ago. What Janet loves about Montgomery is the peace. According to her, it’s the best place to bring your children up—you have a little taste of big city offerings, but you can still make family time because it is not all about consumerism. Sundays for her, when D’Road is closed, are family time and God time.
Janet has several unique offerings for the city: she makes dishes from various Latin American countries such as Columbia, Chile and her husband’s native Peru. Every Friday she features a different country to invite customers on a culinary tour. The week we spoke, she branched out of Spanish speaking countries and chose Russian cuisine. No doubt her travels, diverse co-workers and clients aboard the Queen Elizabeth taught her various cooking traditions that she combines with her natural talent of making guests feel like family. For her, preparing food from scratch, with quality ingredients, no flour and no chemicals is not about being skinny or fat but the high risk of diabetes, heart attack, and other markers of poor health. Janet has no plans on leaving town any time soon, when asked how long she would stay in Montgomery she replied, “until I die.”
Visit Janet at D’Road Cafe Monday to Friday 9:00 am - 2:00 pm for breakfast and lunch, or 5:30 - 9:00 pm for dinner at 6250 Atlanta Highway (334-356-1563). Check out D’Road Café’s Facebook page for the featured country of the week on International Fridays.