PVCC Puma Press: December 2006

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	Photo by Cathy Droz
	Owner of 40th Street Café Peggy Beaulieu serves affordable, home-cooked food in a retro 50's environment.
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Owner Peggy Beaulieu started her career in the restaurant business as a server in a Phoenix café called Miki’s Restaurant in 1979 when she was just 17 years old. Her parents eventually bought the café. Peggy loved her job and looked forward to going to work every day. She made great tips and especially liked being part of a local establishment where everybody knew each other’s names.

When the café was sold in 1991, however, Beaulieu didn’t know what to do. Serving was her life, and management wasn’t personal enough for her taste. During the next two years, she tried working at Rawhide Western Town & Steakhouse in one of its restaurants, but the tourists weren’t repeat customers, and she couldn’t get to know them.

She then switched gears and became a housekeeper at a local resort. That’s when she had a life-changing experience she hadn’t anticipated. The Australian golf pro whose room she was cleaning pointedly asked her why she was a housekeeper and what was her true passion.

“Simple,” Beaulieu said. “I want to serve people food, make them smile, and give them a place to call home while away from home.” At that, he encouraged her to follow her dream, take a risk and open up her own café.

Despite setbacks, and with the sweat and free labor of friends and family, the 40th Street Café opened in 1993 to a full house. The cooks and servers (and even the customers) from Miki’s followed Peggy, and most of them work with her today.

“There are people who eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the restaurant almost every day,” says Beaulieu, “and if they miss a day, we get worried and call their homes to check on them. We’ve been called ‘Cheers’ without the liquor.”

The success of this small, no-frills, old-fashioned café is as much due to the homey atmosphere as it is to the fresh home-cooked food. It’s clearly earned its reputation as a gathering place for all people who can be cared for and cared about.

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	40th Street Café 4022 E. Greenway Phoenix 602.992.2511 M-F: 5 a.m.–6 p.m. S/S: 5 a.m.–3 p.m.
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Although the menu jives with today’s fare, including nachos, Caesar salads and Buffalo chicken strips, it also harkens to a 50's era with such offerings as meatloaf, country fried steak, egg salad sandwiches, and milk shakes. At her mother’s encouragement, Beaulieu features her own homemade “Peggy’s Pies,” in addition to family recipes taken from her customers with their blessings.

The décor is plain, but comfy. Posters of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean grace the walls. The unadorned tables boast paper napkins and plastic glasses. The old, glass sugar, salt and pepper shakers seem right out of 1950, and a soap opera plays softly on the TV in a corner near the ceiling. The names of the waitresses are even displayed on a ledge over the entry, each carved from a thick, brightly-colored piece of wood.

Customers are outwardly eager to share their thoughts about Beaulieu and the café. Connie Smeets and Olga Link, who followed Beaulieu from Miki’s, admit that “We’ve been eating here every day since it opened.”

“We could use 150 more of Peggy,” says Dick Prager. “You can go 10–15 miles in any direction and not find food that’s equivalent, much less better. And she knows her customers.”

Bob Fishman plainly says, “The food is fresh and the prices are so reasonable, you wonder how they can do it.”

But Beaulieu insists it’s not about charging people more; it’s about making food affordable for the neighborhood no matter what people do for a living or where they’re from.

Ranchers, CEOs, police, firemen and teachers frequent the café, which also offers outdoor seating. Right alongside the 50's posters on the walls are photos of men and women serving in the armed forces—the sons and daughters, nieces and grandchildren of some of the customers. Under each photo is the name and service address of these heroes, and customers routinely send cards and letters to these complete strangers with only the café as the common thread.

“Over the years, I’ve been blessed with meeting all kinds of people,” recounts Beaulieu. “I had an older gentleman several years ago who I thought needed help. So the girls at the café and I would make sure he had a good seat and plenty to eat, and we even had him at our home for a holiday. I felt he needed a friend and sometimes a warm meal.”

Much to Beaulieu’s surprise, this customer invited her and her husband to his home one day in Fountain Hills. He told her he had a gift for her, and “he opened up his garage and presented me with a 1991 Corvette, fresh from a Barrett Jackson auction,” she says. She refused the car at first, but the gentleman insisted “because he said I treated him with respect and care and never knew anything about his possessions.”

The café is clearly an extension of Beaulieu’s home, as her two daughters work there when needed and, due to Beaulieu’s seven-day-a-week schedule, sometimes do their homework there. As a dedicated mother and friend, she always makes time for everyone.

A proud sponsor of the PVCC’s women’s soccer team, the 40th Street Café wishes to expand its support of the college’s students and faculty by offering free beverages upon the flash of a student ID.