It started with two women working at Trader Joe’s.

Carla Lucente started a catering business on the side, and her co-worker and friend Stacey Jackowski began helping her. 

“We got along so well. We were very efficient together. And one day Carla said, ‘Do you want to open a restaurant together?’ The next day we started looking at real estate,” Jackowski said.

“One month later, we signed a lease…unbeknownst to our husbands,” Lucente added. “We knew it was the right thing to do. One thing after another fell into place. We were searching for a coffee machine, and a gentleman walked in the door and said, ‘Do you guys need an espresso machine?’ We said, ‘Yes!’ and bought it for a quarter of what we would have spent.”

Lucente envisioned local, sustainable, organic, vegan food, while Jackowski leaned toward Mediterranean cuisine and special diets. They combined their visions and b.b. Bistro was born.

Because her parents are vegan and her grandmother has celiac disease (gluten intolerance), Jackowski is pleased the restaurant honors “a million special requests. We specialize in gluten free. We have a lot of customers that really trust us to prepare food they can eat. We had a lady come in who was almost crying because she had a vegan sandwich on gluten-free bread, and she had never been able to get a meal with friends at a restaurant.”

This summer they launched a temporary satellite location at the Market House at City Dock, which Lucente said "is busier than we thought it would be.” Their Market House leases runs through December, and the duo is “waiting to see how it goes. If it’s too much of a strain, then maybe we just enjoy it for the six months.” 

“That’s a whole different demographic down there. A lot of workers that don’t live in the city go to work, have their half-hour lunch and go home. We’re really down the street from there, but they don’t venture up here,” Jackowski added.

But the satellite location is changing that.  

“The first week we got new customers who came to the Market House and now are coming in here. And businesses downtown tried out food there and now they want our catering. The Market House is good exposure for us,” Jackowski said.

After running a business together for more than five years, Jackowski says, “We’re happy. Everyone’s like, ‘You guys get along so well.’ We’re like, ‘We work really hard our five days. We’re able to have a life, our families, time to relax instead of working seven days a week.’

Their business’s success is due to a commitment to customer service and careful spending. “We pay attention to the customers,” Lucente said. “They’re the reason why we’ve made it through a terrible recession when a lot of other restaurants are going down.”

Jackowski also agrees that "being frugal" has helped.

Lucente said they "try not to spend money unnecessarily."

Their financial investment in the Market House, for instance, was very small. “We collected and pulled a lot of things from here,” Jackowski notes, “and luckily, I’m very handy with tools. Even though it is just a stall, we gave it the same home feel of here with our quirky little touches.”

They cling to the reduce, reuse, recycle approach. When b.b. Bistro first opened, “We couldn’t really afford furniture,” Lucente recalls. “We went antiquing and buying little stuff. We saw a diner table that was so cute. Then the idea of all retro was born.”

Their fruit and vegetable cuttings go into the feed of the chickens they get their eggs from. They recycle so much so that “We only have one trash can a week,” Jackowski points out. “We have a ton of recycling.”

Jackowski says the focus on decorating with reused items and recycling in general “led into our being one of the first environmental steward restaurants in Annapolis” recognized by Sustainable Annapolis.

“We were recently invited to be members on the Downtown Annapolis Partnership’s Clean, Safe, Green Committee,” Lucente says. “We also trained the Rams Head Group a couple of months ago. We explained to six managers how they can become environmental stewards and get certified.”

When it comes to being a steward of the environment, Lucente says “People think it costs more money, but in actuality it saves money.”

b.b. Bistro, located at 112A Annapolis Street, Annapolis, is open 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mon. through Fri. The Market House location is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. Email bbbistroannapolis@yahoo.com or call (410) 990-4646 for more information.