When life hands you lemons, make them blue. Coming off its one-year anniversary, Blue Lemon Restaurant and Bistro is blowing out candles and breathing in some well deserved success. Opening a restaurant is always risky. But opening one in a less-than-ideal economy? A risk worth writing about. The company’s delicious triumph is a tribute to its owners and to its niche. Lychelle and Aaron Day picked a concept — a family friendly take on the clean food movement — and committed to it. But taking the plunge was never a question to Lychelle, who hails from quite the entrepreneurial family (Orem-based Xactware and Costa Vida, to name a few). In fact, when naysayers took their shots — as naysayers do — Lychelle and Aaron proceeded with dashes of gumption and naiveté (for good measure). True blue entrepreneurs, indeed.
My husband and I were on a food kick. We enjoyed the raw food diet for about a month, but it wasn’t realistic for young kids. We went vegan, thinking it would be easier, but we ended up traveling towns just to get the food we wanted. So my sister suggested I open a restaurant.
I thought, “Oh no.” But then I thought more, and I warmed up to it. I knew we could do a family oriented restaurant that was healthy. We had something here.
The initial concept was super healthy — vegan, specifically. But then my husband said we’re not going to have men come into the restaurant if it’s vegan. So I looked into other moderation diets and found the clean food philosophy, which has no high fructose corn syrup and no hormones in the meat. That’s when we stopped being vegan. We had to test our own food, right?
We teach what we preach. We have a demo kitchen where we teach cooking classes. We also have a space for luncheons and banquets, as well as a bistro, where we sell merchandise, coffee and hot chocolate. The bistro is still finding its niche. Surprisingly, coffee has not been the biggest hit in Highland.
The restaurant business isn’t always a kind one, and there were some initial fears. We had a number of financial advisers warning us not to do this. But we felt strongly about it. We were trying to create jobs for people in a down economy. It felt like the right thing to do.
Looking back, we were a bit foolish. We were brazen. At the time, people were shocked, saying, “I can’t believe you’re taking this on!” And we were like, “Really? Why?” We just had so much faith in the concept there was never a question. But knowing now how much we’ve had to go through — and knowing 50 percent of restaurants fail in the first year — I can see their point. Lucky for us, being naive worked to our advantage.
The restaurant’s name doesn’t really have a back story. It was going to be Essence Café, but it didn’t feel right. We started looking at other restaurants — Applebee’s, Chili’s, Costa Vida — they were all fun names that didn’t mean anything. So we started playing around with something light and fresh, and my husband came up with Blue Lemon. I wish we had a cool back story, or that the name represented some visionary tree out of Africa. But it’s just fun. Let me know if you have a back story for us.
The most difficult time was getting open. It was an uphill battle with finding the appropriate staff and the right chef and menu. There was a whole laundry list of items, and we tried opening three or four different times before we finally did. We ended up finding our wonderful chef at UVU. He came on and redesigned our menu. He was heaven-sent.
The high point has been customer feedback. Last spring I was in a dressing room in Nordstrom, and the associate asked me what I did for a living. I told her we opened a restaurant called Blue Lemon, and the lady in the stall next to me squealed, “I love Blue Lemon! We go there all the time.” We have such loyal customers. The restaurant has been uniting for the community.
My family has a history of entrepreneurship, and that certainly has helped. We don’t really know much different. We’ve always just taken chances and gone out there and done it. We don’t feel more confident we’ll succeed, but we feel more confident trying.
Being naive worked to our advantage.