Owner of Cafe de Leche Enters Sandwich Business

Local business owner Matt Schodorf admits to being slightly self serving in his entrepreneurial endeavors.

For example, three years ago the Highland Park resident got tired of leaving the neighborhood to buy a great cup of coffee, so he and his wife Anya Schodorf opened on York Boulevard.

After opening the popular coffee shop, Schodorf saw the amount of sidewalk space that was being occupied by his bike riding customers and pushed the Los Angeles City Council to install the city's first bike corral in front of Cafe de Leche. The corral is being installed next Friday, Feb. 18.

Most recently, Schodorf found himself craving a great sandwich, and with that comes Scodorf's Luncheonette, Highland Park's newest sandwich shop, which opened last Friday.

The sandwich shop, located at 5051 York Blvd., across from Cafe de Leche, will be open seven days a week from 11 a.m until 3 p.m.

"It's something Anya and I have been thinking about for a while," Schodorff said. "We get people asking for food a lot at Cafe de Leche, but we want that to be straight cafe."

Schodrof said he never envisioned himself becoming a business owner, but got into the game to fill some gaps that he saw around Highland Park.

"Business is not my background, but I definitely have a passion for it," he said. "I love coffee, that's why I opened a shop. I got sick of driving around to get it. It's the same thing with the sandwich shop. I guess it's slightly self serving."

Like Cafe de Leche, Schodorf's Luncheonette will have a small menu that it hopes to execute perfectly.

So far, the menus consists of about 10 sandwiches and salads, including an Italian sub inspired by the kind Schodorf's grandfather used to serve at the original Schodorf's Luncheonette in Willard, OH, the small town where he grew up.

"We're only going to be open four hours a day and it's mostly a take-out restaurant," he said. "We're trying to do one thing and do it really, really well."

Like the Cafe de Leche, the decor of Scodorf's Luncheonette is simple, clean and mindful of the area's artistic heritage.

In fact, the countertop of luncheonette is made from reclaimed from an old garage on Ave. 54.

"One of the key elements that we are proud of is the reclaimed wood that we used around the face of our countertop. It was generously given to us by a local developer, Steve Jones. Steve had an old garage on Ave 54, just a couple of blocks from us, that he had to tear down, and he let us have a go at whatever we could recover," Schodorf said. "The Garage was probably 70 or 80 years old, and so we're really proud that we could keep some of it in the neighborhood and put it to good use in the new shop."