Small-town charm, big flavor
Suzy Q’s Coffee Shop and Café a Temple gathering place
By Janna Zepp | Photos by Becky Stinehour and courtesy of Elaine Montalbo
The heart of every small town in Texas tends to be its city café. Whether it just opened, it has had a recent remodel, or it is a full-on greasy spoon with the same décor it had in 1946 when it first opened and your great-granddaddy was the high school star quarterback, it’s a gathering place of residents for breakfast and lunch, gossip, local news and general fellowship. Each café reflects the culture and history of its hometown people with portraits on the walls of high school sports teams, cheerleaders, majorettes, the band, and several past mayors and homecoming queens. The menus are simple, the prices are reasonable, and the food is not just satisfying, it is really good.
While Temple is not a small town, it has many such eateries. Neighborhoods in town sometimes have their own local breakfast and lunch spots, giving diners a charming, small-town experience wherever they stop. In the Pecan Plaza on 31st Street, that spot is Suzy Q’s Coffee Shop and Café, which opened in the spring of 2021.
Elaine Montalbo, owner of Suzy Q’s, moved to Central Texas from Perryton up in the northernmost part of the Texas Panhandle to Salado, when her father, Tommy Kelley, needed her help after her mother, Virginia, died. She worked at several restaurants in Salado but missed having her own place.
“I owned and ran Alley Cats up in Perryton,” she says, recalling her first coffee shop adventure. “It was like a little piece of Austin in the middle of nowhere. I loved every minute of it and missed it when I came to Salado, so I began planning to open up a café of my own when the time was right.”
It would be a little while before Montalbo would reach that goal. She met and married her husband Elvis, putting down roots far from her original home. Several years later, knowing that his wife was missing her calling, Elvis brought her to Pecan Plaza to show her a vacant shop space that was up for a new tenant. It was perfect for a small café.
“It felt right, like it was meant to be,” Montalbo says. “I could immediately see all the possibilities of what the space could be.”
Suzy Q’s Coffee Shop and Café opened in April 2021. The café’s décor is reminiscent of the coffee shop Montalbo left behind in Perryton. The Alley Cats’ logo and photos of her three daughters in front of the Perryton shop grace the walls, along with some estate sale finds Montalbo felt would complement the feel she wanted for her new café.
“I have enlarged prints of my mother’s recipes hanging over here,” she says as she points out the stylized photo prints on canvas hanging over one of the café booths. “And that’s me and my father hugging each other, right after we opened.” He passed away not long after the photo was taken.
“Suzy Q is what my daddy called me,” Montalbo says, wiping a tear. “So that’s what I named this café.”
The menu is made up of family recipes like the ones on the café’s walls. Montalbo loves to cook, and she enjoys experimenting with flavors and ingredients to create classic dishes that are a little bit different than expected.
The Bacon Pimiento Cheese sandwich, often a “basket special” at Suzy Q’s, is one of her creations.
“I love bacon. I was in bed one night, thinking about the shop menu and I had the idea of adding bacon to the pimiento cheese recipe I use,” she says. “It turned out to be really great, so that’s what we do now. And when something comes out of kitchen in a basket, people notice and want to try it.”
Montalbo says that if she does not like an entrée or the flavor is not just right, it does not go on the menu.
“Maybe I’m a little picky, but every order that goes out has my name on it. It’s my reputation,” she says. “If it’s not right, it does not go out to the customer. I have a great kitchen and serving crew that understands that.”
Montalbo’s culinary creativity also extends to pets. Suzy Q’s offers up house-made dog treats for her customers’ fur babies.
“Good food is not just for human people,” she says, smiling. “You gotta treat your fur family right, too.”
Suzy Q’s Coffee Shop & Café
Location: 1401 S. 31st St. Suite E, Temple
Phone: 254-228-1555
Hours: 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday
