Geneva chef brings homemade touch to beloved Third Street cafe

An aspiring chef has to start somewhere. Just ask David Bogash.

His culinary story began with slicing small pieces of bread to complement a crock of cheese for diners at Geneva’s Mill Race Inn in the late 1970s.

It was just summer work while attending Monmouth College, but it gave him a keen interest in being a chef — and patrons of The Little Traveler’s Atrium Café in Geneva are thankful he ultimately landed there after choosing a culinary career over his corporate business studies.

It’s been an interesting journey for Bogash, working as a chef at some of the area’s most popular restaurants before his role at Atrium Café, a job he has had for the past 13 years.

That cafe has been in business for 100 years, going back to when Kate Raftery first established a place in 1925 for visitors at The Little Traveler world-market shop in her home on Third Street to have lunch and for carriage drivers to have tea.

Bogash was aware of the Traveler’s history but has added to its legacy with an expanded menu, the creation of a popular Sunday brunch, and promoting the cafe as a place for bridal showers, birthdays and other celebrations. It has added up to making the Atrium Café a busy place.

“There weren’t a lot of jobs available when I graduated in 1979,” said Bogash, a 69-year-old Geneva resident. “There was a guy who was working at Mill Race who had graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, so I applied there and graduated in March of 1983.”

At that point, Bogash went to work at the Twin-Dor in Geneva, a popular supper club on Third Street, now home to Niche. It was at Twin-Dor, after working mostly on salads and appetizers, that Bogash had the chance to pursue his true love.

“My major thing in cooking is that I like to bake, and when a new owner at Twin-Dor converted it into more of a fine dining establishment, he gave me free rein to expand the dessert menu,” Bogash said.

In 1987, Bogash heard the popular Art & Alma’s restaurant in Burlington was seeking “someone steady” to be a chef. He applied, got the job and showed what steady was all about in working there until early 2013.

Like many chefs, Bogash had the itch to try something different, saying the pressure of delivering the goods every night was fine, but it became sort of “remote control” to be cooking rib-eye steaks every night.

As a side gig, he was operating the bake shop at St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin, but he spotted The Little Traveler owner Mike Simon at Geneva’s Memorial Day Parade in 2012 and mentioned his interest in working at the cafe.

Bogash had been fond of The Little Traveler since the days he would walk past it on his way to work at Twin-Dor, taking in the aroma of soup being created in the cafe kitchen.

Simon has known Bogash since they were kids and had a good feeling about his work ethic. He started making pitches to steer Bogash toward the historic Geneva site.

“David wanted a daytime job, so he could be home for dinner with his family,” Simon noted. “We had a lot of meetings, and he was hesitant to leave Art & Alma’s, but he finally said yes.”

A major selling point, in Bogash’s mind, was that Simon “lets every manager do their own thing, and he let me do what I wanted.”

One of those things was getting back to baking. “I knew I liked to make pies and took great pride in my pie-making,” he noted.

At the time, The Little Traveler was selling frozen, pre-made pies, and Bogash felt the store could do better. “I started making our own pies and turned it into our annual Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter pie sales.”

It was a lot of work to do every pie from scratch, but Bogash had created a Traveler tradition, baking more than 100 pies during the holiday seasons. “In the grand scheme of places like Costco or Walmart, that’s not much, but for a little bakery like mine, that is a lot of pies,” Bogash said.

It doesn’t stop there. Bogash estimates he bakes upward of 3,000 cookies that are handed out during Geneva’s annual Christmas Walk.

“History accounts for a lot, and David came in here and hit the ground running,” Simon said. “Any idea I have, when I tell David, he just says, ‘Oh sure,’ and comes up with a way to get it done.”

One of Bogash’s best ideas was to introduce the Sunday brunch concept ― during which he debuted his popular cinnamon rolls ― early on in his tenure, which came not long after Simon introduced Sunday hours at his store.

Bogash and his team — a young accomplice and two waiters with 40-plus years of experience to handle the café’s 22 tables — are doing their part to continue the history and tradition of a shop Edmund and Kate Raftery first opened in their Victorian home at 404 S. Third St. in 1922.

To this day, The Little Traveler remains an eclectic marketplace with 36 rooms, featuring international wares, home décor, gourmet and fashion, as well as books and toys for kids.

At the same time, Bogash and his co-workers deliver the goods with the popular mini sandwiches, homemade pies and various menu options that make Atrium Café stand out.

A vote for Colonial

A survey revealing which ice cream brand each state considers its favorite tells us Illinois residents have a significant fondness for Baskin-Robbins.

The survey, conducted by Trace One, a company that helps businesses meet industry standards while guiding them through digital transitions, cited Google Trends data in determining ice cream favorites.

It also said when Illinois folks seek a regional or local brand, we lean toward Jeni’s Ice Cream out of Columbus, Ohio.

Living in the Tri-Cities of central Kane County and growing up in Naperville, I would simply say hold the phone on the favorite local brand.

There are quite a few in most towns. Here in the Tri-Cities, we have Oberweis, Kimmer’s Ice Cream, Kilwins, Candy’s Creamery, Batavia Creamery and others.

Because it was created and built in St. Charles over the course of 125 years, I lean toward Colonial Ice Cream, operated by the Anderson family in St. Charles, as a local favorite.

How could it not be? Whether you stop at the Colonial Café on the east side of St. Charles or on the south side of Naperville, the result is always the same. The ice cream is really good.

It had to be what Simon Anderson had in mind in 1901 when he established the St. Charles Pure Milk dairy business, expanding it by 1935 to include retail locations to sell milk and ice cream.

Huxtable’s history lesson

Much can be said of Ellen Huxtable and why she is receiving the Donna Dallesasse Award, Batavia’s top citizen honor, on Monday, Sept. 28, at Sturdy Shelter Brewing.

Huxtable is known throughout the area for teaching business classes at Waubonsee Community College and hosting free networking meetings for small-business owners at Congregational Church of Batavia for nearly 20 years before retiring.

In her teaching and consulting roles, she has helped thousands of students and entrepreneurs.

In my past interview with Huxtable, I was fascinated by her recollections of American Japanese families being forced to relocation camps during World War II.

Her family was one of them, staying in the Manzanar camp in a California desert until the end of the war.

“Most people lost everything they had,” Huxtable said of the Japanese families who were moved to Manzanar from 1942 to 1945. “If they had a farm, they lost it; some fishermen who had boats and radios were considered big threats and they lost it all.”

It’s a story Huxtable has shared at public meetings, adding an important history lesson to her long list of accomplishments.

Dave Heun is a freelance columnist based in Geneva. He can be reached at dheun@sbcglobal.net.