BY: Kyla Martin, L&T/Features Co-Editor Published: Aug. 31, 2012
Stephen Payne pressed the orange concoction through a metal strainer. The smooth mixture filled the bowl beneath as he licked a bit from the side of his pinky.
He's never made this soup before, but it will be on the lunch menu. "I'll taste it and give it a name," Stephen said. Most of us know the place, but not his name. We've eaten the food but do not understand the mysteries behind Payne's. Stephen is one of those people from whom you want business, cooking and style advice. But he won't give it to you. He will tug at your order slip with "Omelet" scribbled across the top and fill hollowed out bread with eggs and vegetables. Because at Payne's, you'll eat Stephen's omelet.
The arrival of Starbucks forced Payne's to move from exclusively serving coffee and custard to including meals on the menu.
This intimidating competition ignited Stephen's creativity to invent the Payne's menu.
"I am observant enough to know what the classics are," Stephen said, his British accent on display. "[But] I can interpret things."
That's when he turns the classics on their heads, and Betty Crocker rolls over in her grave.
Stephen wiped off a clean plate, tossed spinach across its white surface and finished the design with a perfect ring of oil around its edge. His omelet sat in the middle as he ground pepper on top.
"If you care about the way it looks, you probably care about everything else," Stephen said. "I care about everything I have influence over. I want things to be beautiful."
Stephen's attention turned back to the soup. The clumps smoothed, and the mixture turned creamy, but cream did not do this. Stephen did.
"I like these extra steps because you're really putting in the time," Stephen said. "I'm putting in more effort, and I hope it comes across. If Payne's ever closes . . . it closes because I tried too hard, and I'm okay with that."
Stephen is not a business fellow or a trained chef. He came to America with a couple extra years of schooling, enough cash to get by and his wits.
"And those weren't a lot," Stephen smirked as he continued straining the pot of orange mush. "I'm proud of the effort. I'm proud of the product. I love the struggle. I love the struggle more than the success."
Stephen is an adventurer and an observer who would follow his heart across an ocean, if it suggested the trip. And it did.
"My heart is my head," Stephen said. "It's close to the same thing. It's sort of like the House of Congress and the House of Representatives."
You have to get it through both.
The place was filling quickly as Stephen shoved the phone between his shoulder and ear to call in a reinforcement, his hands still transporting ingredients around the kitchen. But after he set the phone on the receiver, he shuffled out the kitchen to greet and embrace an old friend.
"He hasn't seen him in a long time," Stephen's wife, Jennifer, said.
The friend was Lenny Prussack, owner of the James Dean Gallery in Fairmount, Ind., who let Stephen stay at his gallery when he moved to America from England 20 years ago.
Stephen only meant to drive through his hero's hometown, but Prussack gave him a home until he opened Payne's.
It was here that he found love.
Jennifer entered Payne's for the first time as a customer, but she left unquestioning of her future.
"I took one look at him-I just knew," Jennifer said, pouring a latte.
And two years later, they proved it.
For the Paynes, the restaurant is a place of family and community. No business school training forces their hands. They are musicians. They are parents.
"I mostly come in and chit-chat," Jennifer said. "People come for food, but all humans want interaction."
Stephen lifted a spoonful of the soup to his mouth, shaking his head after he removed it.
Still nameless.
He offered Jennifer the same, and she called it exactly what it was, writing "Carrot Cauliflower Soup" in smeared pink chalk on the menu board.
Another venture complete.
But the process will restart tomorrow with another culinary creation emerging.
