Martela Cafe to close as owner retires
MARS — A fixture of Mars for the past 13 years, Martela Specialty Shop and Café will close at the end of September with the retirement of owner Marta Tekula.
The café on Mars Valencia Road is known in the community as a meeting place and lunch mainstay for its sandwiches, wraps, soups and hoagies.
Tekula named the restaurant by combining her first and last name, and describes it as “a very simple place.
“We opened 13 years ago, and nothing has changed much since,” she said. “We have gifts, and we have had special events and birthday parties. After (the pandemic), we had to close for a few weeks, and after that, I had a hard time bringing people back for events. But my steady customers helped me a lot to survive after COVID.”
She arrives at the restaurant daily at 6 a.m., and said that while she loves cooking, it is time for her to retire.“One day, you have to do that, and this is that time for me,” Tekula said.Tekula often makes meals with farm-to-table ingredients from local markets, and brings her Slovak taste into her cooking, though she said that her recipes are her own and were not passed down through her family.“People tell me (the taste) reminds them of their grandmas, their mother, their family: It's old world, and I cook like that,” she said. “They always say 'This soup tastes like how my grandma made it.'”
Janet Lee, Tekula's friend who has helped her with the café for the majority of its operation, said that Martela Café is supported by its most loyal diners.“It's community-based,” she said. “Customers love (Marta).”Lee met Tekula when she walked into the cafe with her daughter after a visit to the Mars Library, and has worked with Tekula at the cafe for the past 12 years. She said that she and Tekula used to invent “wonderful stories” to tell people about how they met.“One of our favorite customers believed us when we said we were long-lost sisters from a different country,” Lee said. “It was a heartwarming story, but we stopped telling it. But she is like my sister.”Lee said Tekula has brought a lot more to the community in her time running the café than “just soups and sandwiches.“It's a place where people meet, and they love her, and she guides them along the way,” Lee said. “Imagine like a bartender that serves soup.”
For Martela Café's regulars, the restaurant's absence will absolutely be felt. Tekula said that some of her regulars have eaten lunch at the counter or at a table nearly every workday for more than a decade.One of those regulars is Mars resident Mark Pugliese, who said he ate at Martela Café nearly every day for the past 12 years, barring COVID-19.“She changed my whole way of eating,” he joked. “I'll probably live five years longer because of eating here. There's no place that compares.”
Martela Café's last day is Sept. 24. Tekula hopes that people remember the good food, and that a similar restaurant moves into the building after her.She wants to thank her customers who have supported her over the years.“They've helped me through the hard times, so that I could continue,” she said.Tekula looks forward to spending more time with her grandchildren once she retires, but she isn't sure what she may do with her time specifically. She has considered teaching people how to make some of her recipes through classes, or making a cookbook, but nothing has been set in stone.“I'm going to have time for everything now,” Tekula said. “Even if you're retiring, it doesn't mean that you don't do anything.”
