Roasting up a Winning Cafe on Main Street

For the third time within the same hour, Jane Brigante rose from her seat. She scuttled around her cafe, , greeting an out-of-town couple, hunting down more fresh cheese and refreshing four coffee thermoses. She answered the phone, spoke to a organizer who stopped in and slid more bagels in the pastry case.

And all procured with a pleasant demeanor and winning smile, like someone who was born into a life of serving the hungry, which in some ways she was.

Brigante grew up in Perkasie, PA, with her mom Nancy Webster, who had worked in the restaurant business since Brigante was a child. Brigante has a brother, Jude Webster.

(For reality TV buffs: Jude Webster’s company, Solardelphia, was singled out on the now-canceled TLC show, Jon and Kate Plus 8, when Webster’s company installed solar panels on the reality stars’ home in Wernersville, PA.)

You might say Brigante didn’t fall far from the apple tree. By age 13, she began working alongside her mom, busing tables, and then eventually waitressing. 

Working in restaurants can be hard work: the pace can be frenetic, the long hours can be back-addling, and the pay can range from paltry to generous depending on the eatery. 

“I’ve been around kitchen restaurants for as long as I can remember that it’s just so familiar to me,” said Brigante, 31. 

That familiarity is also a direct result of stints at the Cheesecake Factory, Connie Mack’s Irish Pub, Red Lobster and Houlihan's. 

With a tip from a relative—who knew the former owner of The Cubby Hole was selling—and armed with her formidable spirit, Brigante took her savings and embarked on a homegrown operation at the popular bistro in Oct. 2010, becoming its fourth owner since 1997.

Despite the public's perpetual thirstiness for coffee, Brigante said she took a chance.

“It was in the middle of a bad economy, but I figured I’d either sink or swim,” recalled Brigante. “If I could make it during tough times, I could make it anytime.”

For the most part, business remained brisk, although Brigante does admit that first winter was tough.

“We had a lot of snow, and it made it really hard for customers to get in.”

As the name implies, The Cubby Hole is a niche carved out of a red-brick building on Main Street, where many locals know each other. On most days, it seems apt: regulars sip One Village Coffee, while enjoying a little chitchat. One Village Coffee is a Pennsylvania-based company concerned as much about the farming conditions in Africa and South America as it is a good coffee bean. 

And Brigante’s caffeinated refreshments helped her become the , pulling in 46 percent of the vote.

“That was awesome," she said. 

After Brigante took over, she changed the layout of the kitchen workspace, gaining a larger eating area in the brightly-lit sea-green room. 

To make it a more viable business, she also expanded the menu with favorites like the tangy raspberry turkey sandwich, grilled corned beef Reuben and roast beef panini, while keeping old-time staples like bagels with cream cheese.

Running her own business can be gratifying but difficult, said Brigante, who lives in an apartment behind the restaurant with her 8-month-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lily. Sunday is Brigante’s only day off, but as most small business owners can attest, there are endless chores that always need to be done, from completing paperwork to ordering supplies. 

But it’s all worth it.

Just ask Bonnie and Rick Thul from North Plainfield, NJ, who were first-time visitors to The Cubby Hole on a recent morning. The couple, who were in Moorestown visiting their family—including their 2-week-old grandson—stopped into Brigante’s cafe to enjoy breakfast paninis.  

“This place is a real gem,” said Bonnie. “We’ll keep this place in mind for our next visit.”