A 2007 file photo showsCate Flotree making cheese scones, one of Grateful Bread's most popular items.
Lincoln Journal Star file photo
In 2007,Cate Flotree of Grateful Bread showed off the mixing fork that she was wearing out after 10 years of use. She said then she is superstitious with her kitchen tools, using this fork given to her by her mother to mix all her batters.
For more than 24 years, Cate Flotree admits she's been by herself — cooking or baking in the back with husband Mark while people lined up for as long as it took to buy the delicacies she was creating.
As it turns out, Cate Flotree was never alone.
The people who flocked to Grateful Bread, 1625 S. 17th St., were far more than just customers— and way more than mere lovers of her gouda macaroni and cheese, soups or cinnamon rolls.
They care. They really care— about her.
That point was driven home Friday. In less than a day, a GoFundMe page has collected more than $14,000 from more than 270 different donors, most of them anonymous. Those funds will go toward the medical costs of Flotree's battle with breast cancer.
"I am in my own little world when I am in there cooking and baking," she said. "I am pretty much alone all the time. I know that everyone loves us, but just to see this right now — it's great.
"It makes me feel real good. ... I was not expecting it at all."
Cheyenne Flotree, who spent his formative years working the front of the house— filling orders, taking cash and changing the vinyl on the turntable— never had a doubt about what his parents mean to the community.
When he launched the , he knew it would take off immediately.
"Having worked out front for so long, I think I had a better idea that people care so much more than my parents did," he said.
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It's not hard to determine this community-wide affection. Consider that Mark and Cate opened a vegetarian restaurant in Nebraska's capital city at a time when beef was and continues to be what's for dinner.
"They always wanted it to be what they wanted it to be," said Cheyenne, who now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. "They weren’t going to do anything else. Having a vegetarian restaurant in Nebraska is what they wanted to do, and it’s what they did.
"If they were selling hamburgers, they’d make a lot of money, too. But that’s specifically what they wanted to do."
But Grateful Bread is far more than its fare. The small café features eclectic art on the walls, as well as paper lanterns, Mr. Potato Heads and other things you'd never expect— like plastic dinosaurs.
"The way it looks is a very clear extension of their personalities," Cheyenne said.
And community members embraced its weirdness, the way it cut against the grain by opening its doors only a few days a week, and they devoured the fare.
As you'd expect, Flotree is riding a wave of uncertainty since getting her diagnosis. The mass found a month ago has a team of doctors putting together a form of attack that includes chemo, surgery and radiation, but information has come incrementally.
"I'm getting little bits of information at a time, but not enough to make you feel like you know what’s going on. I am still in that stage," she said. "Once I have it out front and I see what I have to do, then we’ll know and we’ll just do whatever it takes."
And at the end of all of it, the restaurant stands out as her beacon of hope, that place where everything seems to make sense. She can't wait to get back to her kitchen there.
After being shut down because of the pandemic until September, the Flotrees reopened with feelings of optimism and a sense that they had endured the worst. Now there's one more hurdle that awaits what she calls "a re-reopening."
"It’s what I love, so I think about it all the time. But I have to do this right now," she said. "It’s on hold. Everything is on hold until I get better."
Cate Flotree shut down Grateful Bread, the popular Near South lunch shop, after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in December. After months of treatment, she's preparing to reopen in October with Moroccan tomato soup on the first-day menu.
In 2007,Cate Flotree of Grateful Bread showed off the mixing fork that she was wearing out after 10 years of use. She said then she is superstitious with her kitchen tools, using this fork given to her by her mother to mix all her batters.