New cafe, More, thriving in new Ottawa location

Shopping in downtown Ottawa and it’s time to look for some breakfast or lunch, maybe a nice hot or old coffee drink followed by a sweet treat or two?

Don’t settle for less. Look for More.

More, the Ottawa version of the popular Streator cafe and coffee shop More on Main, is open for business and already is thriving from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday in its new Ottawa location at 818 La Salle St.

Like its namesake in Streator, the Ottawa cafe sports menus that include breakfast burritos, bagels, paninis and a variety of other items and for lunch salads, sandwiches, soups and assorted extras, all accompanied by a long list of coffees and other hot and cold drinks.

There are rotating schedules of drink specials, salad specials and soup of the day specials for each day of the week, for example Tuesday is the day for creamy chicken and mushroom soup and a broccoli salad, while Saturday you’ll find a roasted sweet potato salad and a stuffed pepper soup.

Though right now More is on the winter menu, there will be other specialties that come forward when the warmer weather arrives.

“We make everything from scratch, but I feel our soups and salads are unique and fresh,” More proprietor Jen McMullen said. “You can’t go just anywhere and get a spicy peanut stew, so try it while you’re here. Our house chopped salad is the core of what we’ve been serving … The cheeseburger salad sells really, really well in Streator and here we sell Superfood salads all day long. Our banana bars with cream cheese frosting is our signature dessert, too.”

The simple one word name of More was obviously a spin off of the Streator location, but is also a mantra for the kind of wares McMullen wanted to sell.

“I opened More in Streator and named it that because I wanted a place that gives you more fresh-food options,” McMullen said. “There’s a lot of great bar food and a lot of fast food around, but there’s a gap in there – something fresh, like a just-made salad or sandwich – so that’s where the More came from.

“We already had several customers coming to Streator from Ottawa and quite a few Streator regulars who work in Ottawa, so they’d ask us, ‘When are you coming to Ottawa?’ At first I said ‘we’re not,' but now that we’re a finely oiled machine, I felt we could do it … Ottawa has a more laid back feel than the chaotic business we do in Streator, but we’re feeling very welcome here. It’s been great.”

Her seven years of success in Streator has taught McMullen that regular customers are “the backbone” to success and that happens through a friendly, smiling and efficient staff.

“People will forgive you if you serve them a sub-par salad, as long as you serve it with a smile, apologize and make it right,” she said, “but if you’re nasty to them and serve them a perfect salad, they won’t be coming back.

“We have to and want have relationships with our customers and make people want to come in and be here. We hope people will come in and give us a try.”