Alexandra Lourdes and Lin Jerome—the co-founders behind Café Lola, voted Nevada’s Most Instagrammable Restaurant by the Food Network—have two rules when it comes to their business: “Make it an experience, and make it gorgeous.”
“We don’t want anything to be ‘normal.’ It doesn’t work for us. So in coming up with the design and decor, it always had to be beautiful,” says Jerome, who also runs sister concepts Saint Honoré Doughnuts & Beignets and Pizza Anonymous along with marketing firm the Refined Agency with Lourdes. “You shouldn’t have to go to a coffee shop and have it just be white walls and brown. Why not have fun with it?”
Lin Jerome (left), and Alexandra Lourdes at Café Lola at the Forum Shops
Café Lola has been nailing that assignment since 2018, when it first opened in Summerlin. Since then, Lourdes and Jerome have launched four more locations—in the southwest, in Henderson, at Allegiant Stadium and most recently on the Las Vegas Strip at the Forum Shops at Caesars.
What started as a fast-casual eatery fueled by passion, pastries and pastels has quickly become a homegrown success—and the hard work is in the details.
Each Café Lola is a Pinterest board brought to life. Floral backdrops—arranged by hand—set the airy, spring-like scene, with warm accents of gold and shades of Champagne pink to top it off. It’s intentionally delicate. Elegant enough to host a Bridgerton-themed tea party. Exactly the kind of place that serves bottomless rosé and creme brulee lattes dusted in 24k gold.
“We wanted it to be very feminine, very inspiring, somewhere women could go that they felt like this was their home,” Lourdes says. “We pretty much made every single dream that we ever thought of come true at Café Lola.”
Jerome, who graduated from UNLV’s Law School, and Lourdes, a UNLV grad who holds a Ph.D in higher education, both admit they had decent “fallbacks’’ if Café Lola didn’t work out. But with two restaurateur husbands at their side, the self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneurs” took the plunge, bridging the gap between fine dining and fast-casual to create a mini-empire of eateries where the food is always ready for its close-up.
“One of our core values in our handbook is that the camera eats first,” Lourdes says. “Our clients come here to take photos of our beautiful food and the environment, so we always want to make sure the food’s made the same, the drinks are always made the same, so everyone can have that same experience.”
Café Lola’s Strip location symbolizes a change. Jerome says they’re “tightening the reins” to perfect the concept, but an expansion into other markets is imminent. “We plan to take Café Lola national,” she says. “That is our goal.”
And when it does? The duo will have its hometown to thank.
“I don’t know if we would have been able to do everything that we have done so quickly in another market. Vegas is booming, it’s expanding,” Jerome says. “We know we are a hospitality driven community; we take care of each other. That really has helped to propel us to where we are now. Had it not been for Vegas, I don’t know if there would be Café Lola.”
CAFÉ LOLA Forum Shops at Caesars, 725-696-5658, ilovecafelola.com. Daily, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.
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