Woman closes up first, only vegan restaurant in Joplin

[Guest guest]

By Melissa Dunson

 

mdunson

 

It was like the Cheers of Joplin, but with coffee instead of beer.

 

" This place is much more intimate than most places, " said Bethany Kiele of her

restaurant and bead store, Isadora's Wonderful Things in Joplin. " I'm kind of

in-your-face friendly. "

 

Kiele closed the doors to her vegan restaurant last week, and is in the process

of liquidating nearly everything in the building at 3021 S. Main Street —

dishes, dry goods including loose tea, furniture and appliances.

 

All the store's beads have already been sold to Stone House Merchant, a bead

store set to open up in Redings Mill later this year.

 

Intimate eatery

 

The restaurant was an extension of Kiele and her husband, Michael. Their aim was

to create an intimate dining experience as personal as the food Bethany

prepared. Isadora's relied on regulars. Bethany knew their names, their families

and their hobbies. And everyone else in the restaurant did too.

 

Each dish was handcrafted. Each ingredient was hand-selected, sometimes from her

own garden behind the store. A scrawled note on the side of the refrigerator

door spelled out Kiele's ideology: " Fast food is only fast. Slow food is good

food. Please tell us if you are on a time budget because we serve good food

here. "

 

" I knew I couldn't serve just anything, " she said, reminiscing about the

restaurant opening in 2001.

 

More than 200 people showed up for Isadora's farewell brunch June 28.

 

It started out as a small, West Coast inspired coffee bar like the ones Kiele

loved to frequent during her years in California, but blossomed into the only

vegan restaurant in the area.

 

She changed her diet after an illness in 2001 left her with intestinal problems.

 

" I'm really strict with the quality of food that I eat, " she said.

 

The restaurant's closing will be a loss for the vegan and vegetarian community.

The next closest vegan restaurant is in Springfield.

 

Vegans traveling through the area constituted a large part of Isadora's customer

base. Kiele said vegans and vegetarians will plan their routes to include stops

at vegan restaurants.

 

" I would get calls from people wanting to make sure that I would be open at a

certain time on a certain day, " she said. " I would tell them that if they wanted

to come in, I would be here. "

 

New adventure

 

Bethany said she will close the store with the same intimacy she's always given

her customers. She is closing the restaurant and store because of the downturn

in the economy mixed with a large debt that she said she incurred when she

started the business.

 

There was and continues to be a need for higher quality and vegan food, she

said, but pioneering the vegan restaurant in Joplin was difficult.

 

" I'm an innovator, all my jobs have been like this, " she said. " I expect in the

next five years, some more vegan restaurants will open. At least now people will

have gotten a taste for it. "

 

While Bethany said there is a tinge of melancholy in closing the restaurant, she

is excited about her " new adventure. " The Kieles' future includes a probable

move to Maui where Bethany and Michael vacationed about three years ago and

haven't been able to forget about it since then.

 

" He looked at me and said, `I could live here,' and I looked at him and said, `I

could live here', " Bethany said. " It was really hard to get on a plane and come

back home. "

 

She said they will focus on finishing their house in the immediate future and

hope to move in the next year. Until then, Bethany will still do some vegan

catering and is working on her vegan cookbook tentatively titled, " A Midwest

Vegetarian Survives the Midwest. "