The sun beat down on Phillis Engelbert, co-owner of The Lunch Room, and her flower garden as she set out two chairs on the path running through it. She sat in one of them, cool beverage in hand, and beside her, sat Engelbert’s close friend and now business partner, Joel Panozzo. Together, they sipped their drinks as they fantasized about their “fantasy cafe” that they would one day quit their jobs to open.

Engelbert, with a degree in biology and natural resources realized midway through life that being a community organizer and writer was not the career for her. And Panozzo wasn’t too happy with his job either.

As the talk of their “fantasy cafe” continued, Engelbert and Panozzo began to see it as a dream that could potentially become a reality. Both sharing a love in cooking and throwing dinner parties, Engelbert and Panozzo decided to test their cooking on their friends.

Throwing one dinner party after another, each as successful as the next, Engelbert and Panozzo decided to pursue their dream. They did a kickstarter campaign and with the help of many friends and neighbors, they opened up a vegan food cart at Mark’s Carts in 2011.

About two seasons later, Engelbert and Panozzo were ready to move on to the next step, which was to open a restaurant. They found a nice location in Kerrytown and opened up their restaurant in August of 2013.

The path to succeeding, however, wasn’t as easy as may seem. Before Engelbert and Panozzo even started with their food cart, they went to see a business consultant who was also a friend of theirs. They were told not to try to pursue this because there would be “no market for a vegan restaurant and nobody would want to eat vegan.”

Another deterrent was the fact both Engelbert and Panozzo didn’t have experience in restaurants and neither of them had ever owned a business of any kind. Their cooking experience was also limited. Despite this, they decided to go through with this dream. “We decided to take baby steps to make it happen,” said Engelbert.

Engelbert and Panozzo received a lot of support from friends along the way, “A friend [of ours] said ‘if there is something you want to do, just start doing it,’” said Engelbert. “That’s when we decided just to start cooking.”

Now, Engelbert and Panozzo’s restaurant, The Lunch Room, looks a lot like what they imagined their “fantasy cafe” would look like. This small vegan restaurant is filled with music, art and community, which is exactly what Engelbert and Panozzo imagined many years ago.

Engelbert is very happy with her decision to drop her old job and open this restaurant. “I feel like this restaurant, for me, is an example of how every minute of your life can be meaningful,” Engelbert said. “It erases the boundaries between life and work.”