Owner of Cedarburg’s Java House adapts with walk-up window, bakery
Over the years, Lisa Bostrack has spent a lot of time in coffeehouses. She jokes that she’s a professional coffeehouse customer.
When she was thinking about her next chapter, a coffeehouse seemed natural. Since 1992, Java House, W63-N635 Washington Ave., has been a staple in Cedarburg. Bostrack bought the business in September 2018.
Now she’s putting her own stamp on the space and menu. After facing closures and social-distancing concerns, Java House added a walk-up window to continue serving customers. Most recently, Bostrack also added a convection oven, and she’s having fun experimenting and baking nightly to create new menu items in-house.
Her roots
I’m from Colorado, my husband is from Menomonee Falls. We’ve gone back and forth between Colorado and here over the last 28 years. … I was a nanny for 30 years. I moved here when I was 25, took a nanny job. I would go to Cedarburg and walk around. I was terribly homesick. I’d lived in Boulder, Colorado. I would go to Java House and it felt so authentic to me, and back then it was one of the only coffeehouses. When we moved (back) here with our girls 10 years ago, that became my oldest daughter’s hangout …
We were discussing what I’d do with my girls moving on. I’d always wanted to have a coffeeshop and bakery. I didn’t think I’d actually do it, because side note, my cancer battle in my 30s left me pretty beat up. … So for me, it was what do I want to do with my time and what am I able to do? I get very energized by being around people. Being a hostess and taking care of people is what I do.
Becoming a business owner
I realized about 15 years ago that we all have very bad gluten intolerance and celiac (in our family). That kind of changed the thing. Do we do an allergy free bakery? We threw out a lot of ideas.
I was talking with the owner of Java House. He said, “You should come work here.” I talked with my family, and they said it is the perfect way to investigate if you want a coffeehouse. Within a few weeks, it became apparent he was moving on and looking for a buyer. He offered it to me. It was such an important part of our day to day, we knew all the baristas … so I bought it.
Window to the world
Last March and April, it was so hard. I’d worked seven days a week for months. We were just starting to turn a corner, increasing business in that first year and a half. We were served papers by the health department that we had to close the cafe until further notice, right after St. Patrick’s Day. Oh. I have a fiveyear lease. We had no clue what would happen.
I don’t do well with flus. I had to stay home. We closed for three weeks. One of my baristas, she worked for the original owner. The other barista has been there almost 10 years. They used to wait on me, then they continued to work for me.
They said, why don’t we open the café window? That’s what we did. People started showing up at the window. Even now, the window service, we’ve kept it that way. The cafe is too small to socialdistance.
Cookie cravings
The first thing I made in the new oven, I wanted a good chocolate chip cookie. There are so many coffeeshops and cafes in our town. They all do a great job, but my husband would say. "I’m going to drink our coffee, but I’m going up the street for a cookie."
We are also working on allergyfriendly recipes, some gluten-free scones and cookies. I have a friend, we had been renting space at a commercial kitchen to bake these pumpkin spice bars in big batches. We’re making those. We’re going to do some other foods as well, some egg bakes or egg casseroles. There will always be gluten-free options here.
Drinks by design
My daughters and I took all the herbal stuff we did at home, our little hobby of making teas, and we came up with some fun new drinks. I do something called “Moon Milk,” which we started offering last winter. I used to make it for my daughters at night, a wellness potion we call it. Whatever milk of choice with ashwagandha and other things. We put dried flowers on top. Creating drinks is so fun.
We make every kind of latte and mocha. My daughter has a minor in Scandinavian, and she created a drink called a “cup of hygge.” It is the concept of coziness. I said make me a drink that’s warm, not too sweet, and can soothe. This is what she made. That was going to be our Christmas special only, but it has become one of our most popular drinks.
Fun with flavor
We roast our own coffee beans. My husband roasts the coffee beans for me in the middle of the night. He has a day job. We started doing custom coffee beans, flavored coffee beans, too. Our espresso comes from Anodyne.
We actually just started a little collaboration with Lakeside Cookie Company. She called when they opened and asked us to make a custom flavor. We spent months figuring out the Lakeside Cookie Company vanilla sugar cookie.
We have about 12 flavored coffees we do. Last year, my husband came up with a Brandy Old Fashioned Sweet coffee, and it flew off the shelf.
People power
Every time we kept thinking we are not going to be able to stay open another week, people would come up from Milwaukee. It is so personal. Hopefully, we can fully open up this summer … I do miss people walking in, I miss it so much. What inspires me is the people.
Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email psullivan@gannett.com.