At Martinelli’s Market, owners put vision into action

Lauren and Jeffrey Brokish hatched the idea to open a deli in downtown Champaign in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, and after buying and reuniting Pekara Bakery and Bistro at 811 W. Springfield Ave. and Central Illinois Bakehouse at 208 N. First St., they opened Martinelli’s Market in late 2022 at 500 N. Walnut St.

Anthony Zilis/The News-Gazette

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CHAMPAIGN — In the early stages of the pandemic during the summer of 2020, Jeffrey and Lauren Brokish had plenty of time to spend together at home, which they’d use to ruminate and talk about their dreams for the future.

During one of those chats, they came up with an idea that immediately felt right.

“We had a discussion about how this town needs a good deli,” Jeffrey said. “So we thought, ‘Maybe we should open a deli.’ And with COVID, we had a lot of time on our hands, so we thought, ‘Let’s do it.’”

The project made sense for both parties in different ways.

Lauren worked in the food industry, selling wholesale for various businesses, including Pekara Bakery and Bistro and Central Illinois Bakehouse.

Jeffrey was a software engineer who had already grown tired of remote work. As a child, he fondly remembers, he used to visit his grandfather’s deli, Martinelli’s Market, before it closed in the early 1990s.

Two years later, they opened the new Martinelli’s Market at 500 N. Walnut St., on the northeast end of downtown Champaign. While Jeffrey’s mother had died earlier in the year, much of her family came to the grand opening.

“When we were thinking about naming this project, I brought up the Martinelli’s concept, and it was a pretty easy sell and fit with the brand identity we were trying to set forth,” he said. “It reflected our core values, which (centered on having) a local family deli.”

Putting their original idea into action, though, was far from easy.

Co-owner Jeffrey Brokish points to a photo of his grandfather Frank Martinelli, whose deli in Madison, Wis., served as inspiration for the concept behind his grandson’s in Champaign.

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Shortly after they conceived the idea, the Brokishes decided they’d like to source their bread from Central Illinois Bakehouse, which Lauren had helped her good friend Seka Cuk, founder of Pekara Bakery and Bistro, open as Pekara Bakehouse. In 2017, Cuk retired and sold the bistro and bakehouse to two different people.

At the end of 2020, the new owner of the bakehouse decided he was ready to retire, and sold it to the Brokishes. About a year later, the owner of the bistro, which Lauren describes as “more of a ‘breakfast all day’ vibe,” also retired and asked the Brokishes if they would buy it, and they jumped at the chance to reunite Cuk’s former businesses.

When they began leasing the space that would become Martinelli’s, which is in a former car dealership that had been gutted, it had gravel floors and no interior walls. They worked with a local architect to build a kitchen, offices and the main open area that includes tables and two counters, one filled with pastries, the other with bread and toppings. They now partially own the space.

“It was really a ‘start from scratch’ vision, which was both fun and scary,” Jeffrey said.

Lauren’s experience in the food industry was helpful in obvious ways. After years of working with local vendors, including Saturdays spent at Urbana’s Market at the Square, she was able to mine her various contacts to source local food.

She also had perspective on what she liked and didn’t like about food sourcing.

”I spent so many years selling boxes of frozen food off the back of trucks,” she said. “I was contrasting how I spent my work week with how I spent my weekends at the farmers market. I was just like, ‘We can do this better. There’s a better way to do restaurant food service than always buying frozen french fries. We can do higher-quality stuff that celebrates some of our local producers.’”

Customers sit at tables and browse the shelves Friday at Martinelli’s Market at 500 N. Walnut St. in downtown Champaign.

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Martinelli’s buys its lettuce from an aquaponics farm in Bement, its beef from St. Louis and its ham from Fairbury. The Brokishes are actively looking for a source of local turkey, and they’re close to “something exciting” about sourcing their cheese, Lauren said. They also make their salad dressings from scratch.

The benefits of buying local, Lauren said, are obvious. The food is fresh, of course, and the transportation costs are much less than shipping it from California, where many of the country’s fruits and vegetables are grown.

They’re also able to come to agreements with local producers on a consistent price at the beginning of each year. When buying on the commodity market, prices can fluctuate wildly, Lauren said.

“We hope to serve as a model that restaurants can change their buying practices,” Lauren said. “Restaurants can buy farmers-market style, exposing those farmers to way more customers than they would see at the farmers market. We’re also giving them sustainable and meaningful income throughout the year. We’re really happy to be a part of that system that supports them.”

Jeffrey’s previous career also came in handy in various ways. While he’s developed programs to help with various tasks, his most helpful knowledge has come from a workflow standpoint.

Lauren credits Martinelli’s ability to get off the ground quickly to the Scrum workflow that Jeffrey learned during his career in the tech industry. The process involves putting various team members in charge of specific tasks, prioritizing the most important jobs to maximize efficiency and limiting the amount of jobs the Brokishes have to micromanage.

The key to making that system work, Lauren said, was hiring a qualified staff and paying them fairly.

“We really focus on hiring skilled artisans who are passionate about the craft and then treating them like professionals, which helps a lot in food service,” Lauren said. “That’s probably the thing we’re the most proud of.”

“What I really value is when someone comes in and takes a bite of a sandwich and says, ‘Oh, wow, that’s good,’” Jeffrey Brokish says.

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Just before 1 p.m. Friday, eight customers were sitting at tables and another was milling around the shelves of baked goods and condiments. From the beginning, business has been relatively steady, the Brokishes said. As their name recognition has grown, so has their business.

The Brokishes have been quick to adjust as they’ve learned what the market wants.

For instance, the restaurant originally served sandwiches wrapped in paper, thinking customers would take them to go. Many of them sat down immediately and ate them, causing them to rethink the concept of the deli.

“We were like, ‘We should probably have plates,’” Lauren said. “The original concept was more of a ‘grab and go’ deli. … We were like, ‘People will come in after work and grab a pound of pastrami, a loaf of bread, maybe take a sandwich to go.’ That was not the experience. People were like, ‘We want a restaurant.’”

The Brokishes have big plans that they’re not yet ready to reveal that will allow them to produce and source more food locally.

Anthony Zilis/The News-Gazette

Soon, regular customers began bringing their laptops with them and asking for a public Wi-Fi password, which they didn’t have originally. They quickly adjusted, and now, some customers spend hours at a table while they work during the quieter early-evening hours.

They also opened an outdoor patio in the spring, and recently, they unveiled a pop-up store in downtown Bloomington, which sells baked goods every Saturday. The Brokishes also have big plans that they’re not yet ready to reveal that will allow them to produce and source more food locally.

Their most immediate focus, though, is getting customers through the door and providing them a memorable meal.

“What I really value is when someone comes in and takes a bite of a sandwich and says, ‘Oh, wow, that’s good,’” Jeffrey said.

Added Lauren, “We had someone come in yesterday and say, ‘This is the best sandwich I’ve had in 40 years.’ That just feels really good.”