Modesto restaurant veterans bringing scratch-made craft breakfast, lunch spot downtown
A Modesto couple is determined to help you start your day off right.
Valley restaurant veterans Marissa and Wyatt Smith are in the process of opening their first eatery together. The new spot, Lucille, is under construction on H Street in downtown Modesto. Once complete, the intimate, roughly 1,000-square-foot space will serve breakfast and lunch — all made from scratch.
They hope to turn the restaurant into a real neighborhood cafe, attracting regulars as a cozy community spot.
“In concept we want it to be sort of a French cafe meets American diner meets delicatessen,” Marissa said. “And we want food you can feel good about, that’s indulgent but not artificial. A place you can stop and feel at home six days a week.”
Marissa, 30, and Wyatt, 35, plan to bring their combined decades of knowledge working in some of the best-known restaurants in Stanislaus County to bear in their new place. The couple left 60-hour-a-week jobs as the general manager at Camp 4 Wine Cafe and the Redwood Cafe in Oakdale, respectively, to start their new venture together.
The pair, who met while working at Dewz restaurant in 2011, have been married for the last six years. In 2020 they welcomed their daughter. It was that, coupled with the pandemic, that pushed them to follow their longtime dream of opening their own place.
Good Day, Lucille will serve breakfast and lunch, have a full espresso bar and serve beer and wine. The latter is a particular specialty for them. In 2020 they launched Scout Wines, a curated wine club and delivery service that works with small-batch California producers. Their interest in wines stems from Marissa’s work at Dewz and then Camp 4, and she is now a certified sommelier.
The business, which they currently run out of their home, launched in December 2020. They have more than 90 varietals from close to 50 producers across the state. The offer delivery across the region and offer single bottle purchases as well as a subscription service, and have done pop-up events.
Once open, they plan to make Lucille the homebase for Scout Wines, and host wine club and other events there during the evenings.
The space on H Street is in a more than 100-year-old building, and was formerly a bail bond business but has been vacant for years. The couple is doing a lot of the renovation work themselves, with help with of family and handy friends they’ve made over the years working in restaurants.
They are hoping for a late September opening. Once complete the space will have seating inside for about 20 with room for another dozen on the planned outdoor patio.
But what they hope to produce out of the small space is an abundance of goodness, from baking their own breads, bagels and pastries to using quality whole foods as much as possible. They plan to make all their own granola, sauces and condiments.
“One of the most exciting things about this is that we’ll have full control over the ingredients,” said Wyatt, who started out as a busboy at Dewz when he was 15 and spent most of his career cooking before transitioning to front-of-house duties. “We don’t necessarily want it to be health food, but stuff you feel good about. Things I feel good feeding my daughter.”
So expect an array of fresh-baked pastries, traditional breakfast favorites, as well as sandwiches on their in-house bread. They’ve been testing out recipes at home, and one they’re excited about is their “Benny on a Bun,” eggs benedict served on a brioche bun.
They plan to be open six days a week until 3 p.m. with breakfast served all day and closed Sundays, letting others battle for the area’s brunch crowd.
But the duo has bigger dreams than just breakfast. Wyatt and Marissa said they’re proud to be part of a new wave of younger restaurant owners in the city. Marissa likened Lucille to a “starter home,” and if things go well they’d like to open a full-service restaurant down the road.
And about that name. Lucille is named after Wyatt’s grandmother and their daughter’s middle name. The matriarchal naming is something the couple hope to continue should they open another restaurant, naming it after another grandmother.
“A lot of people from Modesto with great ideas take them elsewhere,” Marissa said. “But we’re about taking care of the community and raising it up as much as we can. We want to help make our town better.”
For more on Lucille, visit their website gooddaylucille.com or their Instagram www.instagram.com/gooddaylucille.
This story was originally published July 18, 2022 at 6:15 AM.
