Du Jour: Maureen Joyce, MJ’s Café

Vegetarian Maureen Joyce spent years navigating local restaurant menus, finding few inspired options that met her specifications. A month ago, she opened a lunch counter of sorts for fellow vegetarians and seasonal eating fans called MJ’s Café. Situated within the Capitol Heights modern interiors shop, Artvark, ltd., the focus of Joyce’s small-scale operation is vegetable and seafood-centric lunch fare created with local ingredients.

Joyce took the plunge into the restaurant business after a serendipitous catering opportunity emerged. She was working at the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge when the organization needed a last-minute vendor to prepare 400 lunches for Fest-for-All artists. An avid home cook, Joyce took it on. “I got so much great feedback, so much love, from that experience,” she recalls. “I knew I wanted to do more.” Other catering jobs followed, and soon she was busy enough to consider a career change. “Food had always been there, in the back of my mind,” Joyce says. “Finally said, if you don’t pursue your dream now, when will you do it?” She also believed the time was right for a vegan-vegetarian menu in Baton Rouge. Seafood is featured, too, since many vegetarians make exception for fish and shellfish. However, ingredient lists are clear enough for uncompromising practitioners.

The menu’s inspiration derives from Joyce’s three favorite cuisines, Italian, French and American Southwest. Soups are vegetable broth-based and include black bean with peppers and sherry, and quinoa chowder with potatoes, scallions, spinach and feta. The “French” sandwich features goat cheese, sliced pears or strawberries, arugula and pepper jelly. Joyce’s popular melon salad combines cantaloupe, cucumbers and Granny Smith apples in jalapeno vinaigrette.

“I’m really getting a positive response,” she says. “I’m not trying to convert anyone. I’m trying to give vegetarian and vegans good options and show everyone the depths of flavor that can be achieved in vegetarian cooking.”

Joyce will provide a cooking demonstration during the Red Stick Farmers Market’s “Corn and Squashtastic” event on June 25. Hot Art Cool Nights – grand opening

Open 11-3 Monday through Friday. For more information, Mjs-café.com