New restaurant aims at lunchtime crowd

A new restaurant has opened in downtown Portland for lunchtime customers.
Lora Antrim, owner of The Lunch Box, is fulfilling her long-time dream of running her own restaurant located at the corner of Walnut and Commerce streets. It is the first business venture for the former manager at Richard’s.
The building was once a bank drive through until it was renovated into the home of Jay’s Smoking BBQ. After buying the property in June, Antrim said she planned to open in July but was delayed because of the downtown floods.
After opening in August, she said the restaurant has been going well and she is always busy. She already has regulars coming between two and three times a week or every day. The Lunch Box is only open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
“I just decided I wanted to start slow,” Antrim said. “I can always add (and) grow when I need to.”
The menu consists of “good, quality food” that isn’t processed or packaged, she said, so there are three hours of preparation before the business opens and two hours after it closes. But the schedule hasn’t hindered the restaurant because it’s located near the downtown offices and offers catering services.
In addition to the restaurant being her first business, Antrim also received a degree in Culinary Arts from Ivy Tech in Muncie and came from a family of good cooks, she said.
“I love everything about cooking,” said Antrim, who runs the business with just two other employees — her sister and a friend — with the rest of the family helping out on weekends. “It’s comforting — it’s what I love and what I do best. Everyone in my family is a good cook; it comes naturally for me, I guess.”
In addition to the regular menu, there is a daily special and new soup of the day. The menu includes Reuben sandwiches, roast beef, salads and sides. All sandwiches are $4.
Antrim said the best seller is a turkey club, and the pulled pork that was named “best sandwich” at the Jay County Food and Drink Festival.
The oncoming challenge will be winter. Right now the only option for customers is to eat outside or to use the drive-thru window. Eventually Antrim wants to enclose the outside-eating area so customers can walk in to purchase food. She said one day she hopes to get a larger building but remain at a reasonable size.
By spring Antrim said she is thinking about expanding the business hours, while providing more catering services and even adding baked goods. If there is anything else she offers it’s the quality of food.
It may not be healthy food, she said, but it is homemade.