Cafe Blue brings breakfast and tasty treats to Iron Pier

SYRACUSE — Olivia Orlando grew up in the food business and knew she would continue the family tradition.

Starting with her grandfather, to her parents and her aunt and uncle, running a restaurant runs in the family.

Orlando’s first venture into the business came in 2017 shortly after she graduated from Paul Smith’s College’s baking and pastry arts program. 

“I got my trailer right after I graduated college,” she says of her Blueberries and Lace food truck. It took her about a year and a half to renovate the trailer to suit her needs, and the bakery on wheels launched in March 2018.

Her baked treats were well received in Syracuse’s busy food-truck scene, and it wasn’t long before Orlando was outgrowing the kitchen at her parent’s restaurant that she used as her required commissary kitchen.

“I needed more space,” she says, “so might as well open a brick-and-mortar.”

Orlando knew Merissa Lynch, marketing manager at COR Development Company, LLC, after meeting her at numerous events, and that led to conversations about Orlando opening her restaurant, Cafe Blue, at COR’s Iron Pier Apartments project at 720 Van Rensselaer St. in the Inner Harbor. The residential-commercial project includes apartments across multiple buildings with first-floor retail space.

“They were super excited about it,” Orlando says of COR, and she signed a lease on 1,500 square feet in April 2022. The unfinished space was a blank canvass she could complete to suit her needs.

Working primarily with COR, she had concrete poured, plumbing and electric installed, and “everything from the ground up,” she says.

In late May, Orlando had her final health inspection, moved items over to her new kitchen, received her final fire department and city permits, and opened Cafe Blue the next day, May 25. Open Tuesday-Sunday from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., the café serves breakfast, sandwiches, salads, pastries, coffees, and teas.

“We were busy from the start,” she says. “We’ve been super lucky.” The café benefited from the following the food truck built over the years, but also benefits from being located in Iron Pier, she adds.

“It really helps that we have the tenants upstairs,” she says. There are also a lot of businesses around and the nearby Aloft Syracuse Inner Harbor hotel at 310 West Kirkpatrick St. “Every day is probably 50 percent new customers,” she notes.

Iron Pier is fast becoming a bustling live-work-play-dine location and is also home to Meier’s Creek Brewing Company at Inner Harbor and a 315 Beauty Bar salon. Onondaga County is moving forward with plans to build a $85 million aquarium along the Inner Harbor.

Orlando also expects events like the first annual Inner Harbor Fest, slated for Sept. 29 through Oct. 1, will bring in a lot of people to the area.

The event, put on by COR in collaboration with Empower Federal Credit Union, Equitable Advisors, and Limp Lizard, will feature live music, carnival rides and games, dragon boat races, fireworks, and more.

Cafe Blue will be open and waiting to serve tasty treats, Orlando says. She currently employs about nine people at the café, which can seat about 25 people inside. It also has eight outdoor tables.

She’s waiting to see how her first fall and winter in business go, but Orlando is already thinking about expanding into the empty space next door for more seating. She’s looking to add a second Blueberries & Lace food truck, too.

“We’re going to get there,” she says. “We’ll keep growing.”