Exclusive | Popular Tri-Cities European caterer to open restaurant with a drive-thru
A popular Tri-Cities caterer hopes to create a unique experience with a new restaurant set to open in a couple months.
Koko’s Bartini closed just a few weeks ago, but already the space is being transformed.
Nena Cosic, who owns European Desserts by Nena, and her fiance Chad Langford are working hard to change the Kennewick space into a cafe unlike any other in the Tri-Cities.
Cafe Magnolia is set to open June 1.
Cosic hopes to create a cafe where she can share her family recipes, passed down for generations, with families in the Tri-Cities.
“Sharing my family recipes is very emotional,” she said. “It’s very rewarding. No money can pay that. It’s something you’re giving to the community.”
Cosic, who left her native Bosnia for the Tri-Cities in 1999, has been catering out of Red Mountain Kitchen in downtown Kennewick for several years.
She said she long ago outgrew the space and dreamed of opening a restaurant where families could come in, sit down and relax while enjoying the European-style desserts and sandwiches she specializes in.
In 2020, she teamed up with winemaker Victor Palencia to open Culture Shock Bistro, a food truck that blended her European flavors with his Mexican heritage to create a unique food and wine experience based out of the Columbia Gardens Wine Village food truck plaza.
Cosic and Langford already had begun taking steps to turn their dream of a full restaurant into a reality before the pandemic put them on pause.
With the state now in recovery, they began looking for a place to call their own. A promising lead last December didn’t work out, but Cosic said they learned a lot from the experience.
So when a friend forwarded her a social media post about a restaurant space opening at the Cynergy Centre off the 27th Avenue roundabout, just west of Highway 395, they were ready.
“We got really lucky,” Cosic said. “It was easier to get rolling because we had already started, and we learned so much.”
The vision
“We want it to be a place where families can come,” Cosic said. “They definitely need to come for our European style coffee, and we want them to come back because you get it all when you come to our place.”
Cafe hours will tentatively be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. And it will feature a full drive-thru. She also plans to continue to offer custom orders.
“We have some items that we know people are going to be excited about,” she said.
Cosic said customers will be able find her famous meatball sandwiches, Mediterranean style breakfast, charcuterie boards and sandwiches and the European treats she is known for.
They’re also planning to offer coffee, beer and wine.
She is particularly excited to be able to offer cakes and charcuterie boards through the drive-up window, allowing customers to quickly grab something thoughtful for their family on the way home from work.
In addition to the dining area, they plan to expand the outdoor seating and create a quiet corner in the hallway just outside the restaurant.
“We want to create a different experience,” she said. “My goal is to bring back my past and share what I’ve experienced.”
Cosic said that if interest from friends and customers is any indication, they expect to be very busy. In fact, they’ve set the opening for June because she’s booked solid for catering over the next couple months.
She plans to continue catering, including having her food truck available for event rentals, and may eventually expand the cafe’s hours to dinner if they’re able to find staffing. In the meantime though, the couple is focused on creating a new experience that will get people talking.
Catering to Cafe
It’s been a long, but rewarding road for Cosic. Her baking career started while working at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland, bringing in treats for her co-workers. She said they loved the unique flavors so much, that they began to encourage to open a business.
“I figured that in order for me to succeed, I knew I had to offer something that nobody else has done in town,” she said.
She began working out of the communal kitchen at Red Mountain and catering grand openings, wineries and offering packages of desserts.
Cosic then expanded her offerings to include cooking classes for children, and eventually bought the food truck.
She hopes to continue the cooking classes once the restaurant is up and running.
