Create Cafe serves up whimsy

Comedian Jon Stewart's "America" is one of the reading options tucked onto the bookshelves.

Thomas the Tank Engine chugs across a small TV screen in the corner. The furniture is mismatched, as is the melamine dinnerware. Random chandeliers hang from exposed ceiling pipes. A rubber chicken dangles from the pot rack.

Create Cafe and Catering doesn't look so much like a restaurant as a hoarder grandma's house.

And that's just the point - it aims to be more than just a place to grab a good bite.

"We really want this to be like a community center," says owner Lauri Kaye.

Knitting and mothers groups meet here. Diners pop open laptops and use the free Wi-Fi. Create Cafe raises money for different charities, including the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer organization and the Humane Society of Southern Arizona. It hosts make-your-own-pizza birthday parties. Friday nights are open for local artists and musicians to showcase their talents. And Saturday nights, well, that's all about families, with $2 kids meals, an inflatable jumping castle, Hula-Hoop contests and a conga line led by a dancing tomato. Seriously, a dancing tomato. Employees take turns slipping on the oversized, satin tomato suit and shimmying around the tables, an activity not without danger.

"We've had a couple of spunky kids give the tomato a few right hooks," Kaye says with a laugh.

This quirky eatery, with the welcoming make-yourself-at-home vibe, has come a long way from its humble beginnings inside the former Metro Fitness gym on Speedway in 1999.

Kaye, who's largely self-taught in the kitchen, originally wanted a place to bake "ugly cookies," those lumpy kitchen-sink confections stuffed with all kinds of nuts and chips. Instead, she crafted a cold menu of mostly sandwiches and smoothies. In those early days, she went out with baskets full of sandwiches trying to drum up business. Soon, Create built up a reputation for its catering.

Before long, Create outgrew its gym space and moved into a small strip mall on Grant Road, just east of Craycroft Road. The menu was still cold with things like granola-yogurt parfaits, its signature Wooa chicken, a curry chicken salad with pepper roasted walnuts, and "paint brushes" - celery stalks smeared with almond butter and dotted with coconut and raisins. Everything was pretty and arty, highlighting Kaye's graphics background. But soon, employees were stepping on each other in the kitchen again.

Three years ago - when the sprawling space on Camp Lowell Drive formerly occupied by a Mexican restaurant became available - Kaye jumped at the chance for Create's third incarnation.

Under chef Christopher Duncan, the menu expanded to include hot foods. The menu is simple, focusing on comfort: juicy burgers on soft, whole-wheat buns; all-day breakfast; homemade soups; even healthy chili dogs featuring nitrate-free hot dogs and a chili laden with roasted and grilled veggies. You can find lots of gluten-free offerings and $1 beer on tap.

"We joke around that the kids' milk cost more than your beer," Kaye says.

Speaking of the kiddos, another goal was to design a very family-friendly restaurant. Kaye herself has a 5-year-old son, Lance, and other staffers have children, too. As anyone with little kids knows, dining out with them can be, well, a soul-sucking experience.

Not at Create.

Here, on Saturdays, kids flit in and out of the restaurant, playing in the jumping castle or stacking supersized blocks on the patio. A foosball table anchors one corner of the restaurant, while at the opposite end a small easel and kids' books offer more opportunities for fun.

Janice Auerbach was a customer of Create when it was on Grant Road. She loved the fun twists on the basics - like the sun-dried tomato-spiked tuna salad - even though it was challenging to maneuver a stroller through the small space. The mother of two, ages 7 and 10, loves the newest Create as a family hangout.

"My husband and I can eat there and almost have a date there without having to hire a baby sitter," says Auerbach, whose kids gravitate toward the foosball table and the jumping castle. "It's really the only place you go to where you don't have to tell them to sit and wait. The kids go and do something and come back. It's just so easy."

The family vibe is furthered with the tight-knit staff of 12, many of whom have been with Create for several years.

"We hang out together during holidays and kids' birthday parties," says John Schultz, who's been with Create for 11 years. "I'm closer to people here than some of my own family."

The restaurant industry can be a grind, but the Create gang manages to have fun. On a recent afternoon, after the lunch-hour slam, the staff took time out to celebrate Duncan's birthday with a slice of "white trash cake." It was Kaye's spin on a treat her sister told her about - layers of convenience-store snack cakes like raspberry-coconut Zingers and Chocodiles with the occasional bite of Nutter Butter and Nilla Wafer, all packed around a chocolate-chip ice cream center. Everyone agreed it should find a place on the menu.

Restaurant high jinks are chronicled in mini-Polaroids dangling from a plastic octopus hanger above the do-it-yourself shake machine, another popular attraction for the kids. Visitors to the men's restroom can enjoy a photo collage of Schultz's Halloween get-ups. Conspicuously absent: his Wonder Woman costume, which generated wolf whistles on a delivery until he turned around and his facial hair gave away his dudeness.

They'll do things like throw together spices and imported chiles to make the World's Hottest Pizza or have customers tell a joke to get $1 off their lunch. That one was an ill-fated promotion, Kaye says, smiling, since the line ground to a halt as people told incredibly long-winded jokes.

She credits Create's longevity to her philosophy: "You have to love what you do and treat people right."

"It's really about embracing joy," Kaye says.

Even if that means dressing up like a tomato and taking a punch or two.

If you go

• What: Create Cafe and Catering

• Where: 4660 E. Camp Lowell Drive, 298-3421, www.createcafe.com

• Hours: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; closed Sundays.

Special-event nights

• Fridays - Call for Artists showcase. Display art, play music and sell crafts. Ask a manager for details. Music from 6-8 p.m.

• Saturdays - Family Night. Activities include movies, Hula-Hoop contests and dancing tomato conga line. $2 kids meals.