![Why Spoons? While owner Karen Klassen was trying to think of a name for her restaurant, she looked through a recipe book and found Spoons Rolls. She originally served a basket of rolls with every meal. Klassen served rolls for only the first week in business, but she said the name stuck. nu201cItu2019s hilarious because when you get your silverware [at Spoons], itu2019s just a fork and a knife unless you get the soup,u201d Klassen said.](https://cdn2.communityimpact.com/?url=https://communityimpact.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/MCK-2017-07-22-1.jpg&w=500&q=72&f=jpg)
McKinney native Karen Klassen took the two ovens, mixer and knives from her house and opened Spoons Cafe 13 years ago.
Klassen said she never wanted to be in the restaurant business, but she found the new direction when she decided to leave the corporate world.
She began helping a friend with her catering business, and when the friend fell ill, Klassen took over. When a restaurant went out of business in downtown McKinney, she decided to start Spoons Cafe.
“Literally, I took the ovens out of my house and my KitchenAid mixer and a few knives—that’s all I had,” Klassen said. “I bought this little restaurant’s tables and chairs, and 30 days later I opened the restaurant.”
Klassen’s goal was to create a place for people to eat breakfast downtown, she said.
“I had moved from Dallas a few years before [opening the restaurant], and I thought there was no place here to grab a great salad or a great sandwich. There weren’t many options at all,” Klassen said.
The restaurant started serving breakfast and lunch only along with offerings of chocolate and coconut cream pie, but Spoons now offers a four-page menu with breakfast, lunch, dinner, more than eight pie flavors and a full bar.
Spoons moved from its original downtown location to its present location on East Louisiana Street four years after it opened in August 2004 and expanded again one year later to an adjacent space behind the restaurant called Spoons Garage.
She describes Spoons’ atmosphere as “casual, comfy and hip” and uses antiques from local shops to highlight the original character of the space.
Klassen said she wants to make sure Spoons continues to evolve.
“I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that if I make a decision and maybe it doesn’t go the way I think it should, or it doesn’t look successful, [it] doesn’t mean that that’s not the path I should’ve taken anyway, because you can learn from it all,” she said.
Spoons Cafe 100 E. Louisiana St., McKinney 972-548-6900 www.spoonscafe.com Hours: Sun.-Thu. 7:30 a.m.-8 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 7:30 a.m.-9 p.m.
