OJMCHE is thrilled to announce that the popular Jewish deli Sweet Lorraine’s is expanding into the museum’s Lefty’s Café. The menu and hours can be found here.
Co-owners Rachel Brashear and Aaron Tomasko share the Sweet Lorraine’s story:
We are a small mom & pop restaurant serving a rotating menu of specialty handmade items. We make everything from scratch in small batches. We were inspired to start Sweet Lorraine’s because of our shared passion for delicious food and our desire to reconnect with our roots. We named the business after Aaron’s Grandma.
Grandma Lorraine grew up in Brooklyn and raised her family on Long Island. Lorraine’s father Herman worked at The Exchange Tavern on Wall Street. Sharing love through food was, and is, an important part of our family passed down through Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants.
Growing up in the midwest, these roots felt far away. Aaron loved getting a taste of it when visiting family on the east coast, but that culture was almost nonexistent where he lived. When we moved to Portland years ago, we also lamented the lack of New York style Jewish food.
During the pandemic our careers as musicians were put on hold. We decided to try something new and bring the foods we had been longing for to our community here in Portland. We believe that community is built, shared, and preserved through things like food and the arts. We don’t want to only provide nostalgia through comfort food, but also use culinary traditions to create new lasting memories and connections. Our desire is not to be your typical Jewish deli, but to lovingly cook foods that are hard to find and delicious, to preserve them and share them with new generations. We offer homestyle Jewish comfort food, in the tradition of a Dairy Restaurant – or your Grandma’s house.
What is a Dairy Restaurant?
In the Jewish tradition of keeping kosher it is generally forbidden to mix meat and dairy. Therefore, it became popular to eat a dairy meal for breakfast or lunch and eat meat with dinner. Because of this tradition, restaurants in Jewish communities often specialize in one or the other. Dairy Restaurants became popular places to eat kosher dairy meals and socialize. Our menu items are based on this idea and are things you might have found at a classic New York Dairy Restaurant.
Dairy Restaurants are rare these days, even in New York City. We decided to make Sweet Lorraine’s a Dairy Restaurant because we found that the foods fit into our own diet and lifestyles. We also feel that it’s important to keep kosher traditions out of respect for the culture and religion.
In places with large Jewish communities, like New York City, many of these foods have become part of the culture of the city, and some have even spread across the country. Most people know about bagels and pastrami on rye, but many other dishes are not well known outside of Jewish communities. Our desire is to learn about and share these wonderful dishes with EVERYONE in our community. You don’t have to be Jewish to love traditional Jewish comfort foods!
Food is our love language, and the way we share that love with all of you.
Offering our food at Lefty’s Cafe feels like the perfect fit for us. One of our main goals with Sweet Lorraine’s is to not only preserve the traditions of the past, but to keep them alive and thriving for future generations. What better way to do that than food?