Cafe in Caputo's offers Middle Eastern fare

It started as kind of a joke.

Leslie Cook and her husband David Carter used to stop in Joe Caputo & Sons along Randall Road in Algonquin often, as Carter sold his homemade barbecue sauce to the grocery store.

The couple got to be friends with the owners, and when they purchased their own trailer, from which they planned to sell Cook's fabulous homemade vegetarian and Middle Eastern fare at the Woodstock Farmer's Market, they invited their friends at Caputo's outside to see it.

Once they saw it, the folks at Caputo's thought Cook could also park her trailer outside of their store some days, and sell her popular vegetarian food from there.

But they ran into issues with the village and couldn't park it outside.

The folks at Caputo's then jokingly said Cook should take over the cafe inside of their restaurant.

But soon that joke took shape as an idea that could possibly work.

And a few months ago Cook opened her own business, Expressly Leslie, inside of Caputo's cafe near the store's exit.

Since then she says she's been busy serving up a variety of salads, soups, falafel and other Middle Eastern food along Randall Road in Algonquin. She still goes to the Woodstock Farmer's Market once a week during the season, where she has lines of customers, and says people from Woodstock are now coming to her in Algonquin.

"There's not another place around here to get food like this," Cook said. "I think there's a real need for it. People are looking for the food and they find me," she said. "We do get a lot of regulars in here now. They either know us from the Woodstock Farmer's Market or their hear about it. We've been very busy. It's worked out so well."

Cook first tried falafel 35 years ago on a visit to Israel. She loved it and when she came home couldn't find it at many places other than a favorite restaurant in Skokie.

So she started trying to make it on her own. Over the years she made more visits to Israel and found new foods she loved, and she met new friends who taught her more middle eastern recipes.

Cook, a vegetarian, decided to open her own restaurant after finding herself up to her elbows in beef, helping her husband with his barbecue business.

"I thought there was something wrong with this picture and decided I should do my own vegetarian," she said. "It's taken off pretty fast."

Expressly Leslie is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday inside Caputo's, at the corner of Algonquin and Randall roads.

• Amy Williams' column covers all the news of business along the Randall Road corridor from South Elgin to Crystal Lake. Contact her at randallbiz@comcast.net or at (847) 894-5036.