Lemonade Stand brings Cajun to downtown Davenport
The Common Chord building in downtown Davenport has an uncommon new restaurant, as the Lemonade Stand is in the former Zeke’s Island Café, 131 W. 2nd St., Davenport, and will celebrate its grand opening Saturday, April 13.
Owner Yasmin Moreles is a 2019 Augustana College graduate, in business management and communications.
She first worked for Zeke’s during her last year in college. Moreles then moved to Indianapolis for two years to work in marketing and consulting. She’s from the Chicago suburbs.
“I was missing the Quad Cities and Chef Stu called me about four years ago,” Moreles said Wednesday of the owner asking to come back to Zeke’s, starting in spring 2021.
She started working at events at the Figge Café; helped him open Zeke’s at TBK Bank Sports Complex (5117 Competition Drive, Bettendorf), and worked at the Duck Creek location (842 Middle Road, Bettendorf).
They later parted ways with the Figge, and opened at Common Chord in mid-2021.
Moreles was the director of operations for all Zeke’s locations before a private investor created the opportunity to convert Zeke’s to Lemonade Stand and she acquired the business.
Zeke’s at Common Chord did good business in the warm months but not during the winter, she said. They weren’t open Mondays in the winter.
“This location made the most sense to introduce this project to, so we were really excited when the opportunity came up through a private investor,” Moreles said.
“We have a very unique environment at Zeke’s compared to the rest of the restaurant industry,” she said. “We wanted to have that be ten-fold, by giving a new name and a new menu, and a new concept, they gave us the opportunity to start from scratch.”
The Lemonade Stand is all Cajun-style, Bayou barbecue foods, compared to Zeke’s theme of Caribbean and island cuisine.
“A lot of culinary basics you can learn through the Cajun cuisine,” Moreles said. “It would give students the opportunity to practice over and over, every day, so they can master that skill.”
“This particular menu is easy, it’s friendly to the customer, to the students, and everything is being made from scratch,” she said. “We’re trying to make as much as possible in house, so our students can learn and reinforce the culinary education.”
There no crossover dishes from Zeke’s – Lemonade Stand’s menu includes:
Creole Rice Bowls, such as Citron Lemon Chicken Bowl with choice of Spicy Cajun or Mild Creole Remoulade Sauce.
Signature Southern Sides, like Beans-N-Greens with Andouille Sausage and Creole Rice Pilaf.
Bayou Sandwiches, such as Po’Boys with New Orleans style beef, Gulf Shores shrimp, spicy Andouille sausage, pulled pork BBQ, Crescent City Chicken BBQ, and a Creole Joe (very sloppy Joe).
Training students on staff
The restaurant employes seven current culinary arts students (from age 17 and up), working a variety of hours (10-20 hours a week).
“We operate as a workforce and talent development program partnered with local educational programs that emphasize and prepare skill sets needed to operate a small business,” the restaurant website says. “Our values of Generosity, Adaptability, and Loyalty will help create the foundation for a bridge between young adults and their transition to their careers or next stepping stone in life.”
“We wanted to say hey, this is an environment where you can learn, you should be learning, you can make mistakes and no one’s gonna yell at you or fire you,” Moreles said.
They have had pretty steady business in the first month, and some well-attended watch party nights for Quad City Storm games.
Chef Stu (who is executive chef and culinary consultant for Lemonade Stand) sold most of his assets at a deep discount, Moreles said.
“I think we’re as prepared as we’re gonna be,” she said, noting she departed from Zeke’s in her job. Chef Stu is mentoring students at Lemonade Stand.
The name started as a joke, “since most entrepreneurs started with their own lemonade stand,” Moreles said. “It kind of stuck after that. It made sense in every form, where we’re giving people the opportunity to learn.”
Students will have the chance to try out their own ideas, and the restaurant offers five flavors of lemonade – basic lemon, black raspberry, green apple, tropical punch, and hibiscus tea.
You can buy flights of four of the five (in 5-ounce glasses), non-alcoholic for $8, and alcoholic for $15.
For the mixed-drink lemonades, Moreles said a Crown Apple has been really popular, which is made with whiskey. They also sell lemon cookies.
Dishes that are best sellers are the spicy Andouille sausage po’boy and Jambalaya Bowl (made with chicken, smoky sausage, garlic, tomatoes, onions, celery and green peppers, covering Creole rice garnished with scallions and sweet bell peppers).
‘Something cool’
“It was pretty easy to see the potential here to do something cool and different for the community,” Chef Stu said Wednesday. Zeke’s always has worked to ensure everyone succeeds, employees and customers alike, he said.
“That lent itself very well to Yasmin’s dreams of giving entrepreneurs an opportunity to stretch their legs,” Chef Stu said. “That’s why we went with the Bayou barbecue – it gives us room to do the Gulf cuisine. It’s a hodgepodge of cooking techniques, but it’s based in European classical techniques.”
The Lemonade Stand focuses on fresh foods, in small batches, and even if they’re not culinary students, they learn the same things.
“Yasmin knows all the recipes – as they come out, I teach her, and she teaches the interns,” Chef Stu said. “I’m the one that starts everything rolling.”
The interns see them build a restaurant from scratch.
“It’s a fairly small, basic menu, but they’re very much layered,” he said. The students can try something different and create new dishes.
Lemonade Stand hopes to cater some pop-up events at the nearby Figge Art Museum.
There’s a waiting list of interns on deck as well, Chef Stu said.
“It will let them test the waters, really get a feel for who they are, while making business happen,” he said. “It’s not a school, it’s real and everything’s on the line.”
Chef Stu taught culinary students for Scott Community College class in the 1990s, and apprenticed at Scott in 1991, before going to Johnson & Wales culinary school in Providence, R.I. He first came back to work at the Davenport Country Club.
It’s satisfying to continue to help produce future chefs.
“Let’s get people to really see what the business is,” Stu said of Lemonade Stand. “It’s all about stepping stones, so people can have a foundation to stand on. It’s super exciting.”
“Common Chord has been an amazing partner and landlord and everything in between – having such great shows and amazing staff,” Moreles said. “They’ve supported us. We’re always looking to help co-promote events with them. It just brings in more business. It’s a win-win.”
“Everyone has been really good neighbors to each other,” she added.
Lemonade Stand has hosted a jazz night the third Tuesday of the month from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., hosted by Black Hawk College jazz pianist Corey Kendrick, with some of his students and other musicians are welcome to join. There are just two more, April 16 and May 21, and all music on the Community Stage is free.
This summer, they’ll have live music every Friday night starting second week of June, to coincide with the Live@Five free summer series outside on the courtyard (which is 5-7 p.m.). Lemonade Stand will have music from 6-8 p.m. Fridays. They also did it as Zeke’s last year.
They’re expecting a full house for the Saturday grand opening. Inquiries for private rentals can be sent to thelemonadestandqc@gmail.com.
The hours are Monday to Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, and 11 to 10 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with Sundays usually closed for private events, over the next two months.
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