“New restaurant owned, operated by family”

New restaurant owned, operated by family

Posted: 14 Jul 2010 06:45 PM PDT

New restaurant owned, operated by family

By Priscilla Campbell \ Staff Writer \ pcampbell@lonokedemocrat.com
Friday, July 9, 2010 2:26 PM CDT
The Monday opening of AJ's Restaurant marked a fulfilled dream for owner Angela Rochelle.

The restaurant also is a family affair.

Rochelle's sister Teresa Puckett is the manager. Puckett's husband, Terry, is a cook along with Rochelle's brother Matthew Harris. Her aunt Margaret Simmons makes homemade chocolate and coconut pies from her grandma Gertude Harris' recipe.

Rochelle's other sister Christina Harris, her mom, Fern Davis, and other family members also help at AJ's. She said AJ's definitely qualifies as a family-owned, run and managed restaurant.

AJ's has about 30 employees, including three cooks and 12-15 waitresses.

Rochelle said AJ's is named after her and her late husband, Joe Miles Rochelle, and was something the two always had talked about doing.

"I love to cook. I love to entertain," Rochelle said. "It's [owning a restaurant] something I always had a desire to do since I was a young girl."

Rochelle said eating makes people happy, which is something she likes to do.

She said she opened AJ's in Lonoke because she will live in Lonoke the rest of her life and will raise her children Jessica, 12, and Jake, 7, here.

"It's long over due. It's something Lonoke needs," she said. "I want to serve good quality home-cooked meals."

She said she does not like frozen food, so 90 percent of the food she serves is made from scratch and from recipes she has had for years.

She said when she was in high school she worked at Miss P's, and she learned how to cook from her mother-in-law, Faye Rochelle.

"I cooked full meals every night," she said. "I enjoyed it."

She said AJ's is decorated in a lodge theme with pictures of family history, hunting and fishing. She said she wants people to get a warm feeling and be in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere at AJ's.

She said the theme comes from two vacations the family took to Montana and Wyoming to Yellowstone National Park. She said the area made her feel peaceful, warm and inviting.

She said her daughter, Jessica, took the picture of the mountains on AJ's outside sign while on their vacation. She said moose are engraved in the soda fountain because the kids would yell "moose" when their grandfather talked about Lewis and Clark too much.

Rochelle also said the children's menu items are names that her husband called their son.

The building used to be a movie store. To turn AJ's into a restaurant took from November 2009 until June.

Rochelle said she had purchased land behind the hotels to build AJ's. However, when she was offered the old Movie Gallery building, she choose the building to be closer and more convenient to the people. She said they had to build walls, add plumbing lines, install new lighting, replace the carpet with laminate flooring, paint, put in tables and booths, turn the space behind AJ's into a parking lot, and build a kitchen, banquet room and old-fashioned soda fountain.

She said the only thing left from the original store is the restrooms and office.

Rochelle said challenges were designing the kitchen, putting in plumbing, meeting health codes and standards, pulling up the carpet and putting up the 15-foot vent hood, which took several men to install.

Different plate lunches are offered during the day at AJ's. Customers can order items, such as salads, burgers, philly cheese steak sandwiches, chicken strips, grilled chicken sandwiches, parmesan grilled clubs or foot-long sandwiches. AJ's appetizers are blooming onions, mozzarella sticks, and cheese, salsa and artichoke dips. Steaks, omelets and waffles are served after 4 p.m. On Friday nights, only catfish is served. People can get milk shakes, coke floats and banana splits at the soda fountain.

Rochelle said the specialties are hamburgers, steaks, homemade chicken salad, omelets and carrot cake.

The restaurant is open 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday.

Mayor Wayne McGee, who has eaten at AJ's several times, said the restaurant is great. McGee said the service was good with plenty of help, it was nice inside and the atmosphere was good.

"It [AJ's] is a very nice restaurant," he said.