Grains And Gains | Café Yumm! Owners Hold Steady And Set To Continue Expansion

The Register-Guard:

The Wild Rose Café and Deli tucked inside the Friendly Street Market in south Eugene was Mary Ann and Mark Beauchamp’s first restaurant. Founded almost 20 years ago, it provided the start that blossomed into Café Yumm!, now a growing chain of restaurants.

The Beauchamps transplanted the Wild Rose to Fifth Street Public Market in downtown Eugene in 1993. They renamed it Café Yumm! in 1997 after realizing the meal Mary Ann often fixed for herself — a bowl of rice and beans, topped with vegetables and a homemade sauce made with canola oil, brewers yeast, almonds and other ingredients — had become more popular than anything on the Wild Rose menu.

Yumm! was the exclamation many customers made after taking their first bite, the Beauchamps said.

The Beauchamps opened a second outlet in the Meridian Building in south Eugene in 2001, and a third store in Oakway Center in 2002. They closed the Fifth Street store in 2005, and then in 2007, embarked on an ambitious plan to franchise the brand, with a goal of 50 outlets by 2012.

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