Lydia Holmes and John Clarke started small when they launched their restaurant business – really small.
In 2021, the Orange County, California-based couple opened their first restaurant, LJ’s Lil’ Cafe, in a 200-square-foot shed in a Home Depot parking lot. They also opened a brick-and-mortar location in July 2025. The two restaurants together brought in $2.3 million in sales in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Holmes, 36, and Clarke, 33, met in 2012 while working at a Seasons 52 restaurant in Costa Mesa, California. Though neither had formal culinary training, a shared love for food brought them together, according to Holmes. “One thing that we bonded on was how much we enjoyed trying new places and finding these hole-in-the-wall places or super extravagant places that just had really good food,” she tells CNBC Make It.
Whenever they had a particularly good meal at a restaurant, Holmes and Clarke would attempt to recreate the dish at home with their “own little twist.” Their culinary experiments sparked an idea, Holmes says: “Maybe we could do this one day as a business.”
When the couple learned that the shed, which already had a fully equipped kitchen, was available, they leapt at the opportunity to open their own restaurant.
