Janet has never been one of those people who puzzled over what she was going to do with her life or whether or not she was on the right path.  Janet is a restaurant lifer, a Foodie. Maybe it was her yearly childhood stints working the Abelskiver booth at the Scandinavian festival that programmed this destiny. Certainly the personal time she shared cooking with her father, John O’Connor, played a pivotal role.  Out of high school she spent a year in Europe in French-speaking Switzerland. She came back and enrolled in UO, meanwhile working at Café Central – now known as Café Soriah. Inspired, Janet left Eugene and enrolled at Western Culinary Institute. While there she worked in the kitchen at the Ringside and upon graduation she completed her externship and worked at Atwaters in downtown Portland. When her stepmother became terminally ill she moved back to Eugene to help out where she was promptly hired to manage Café Central. After almost two years she moved back to Portland and went back to work in the kitchen at Atwaters for a few years before she began a 12-year stint at Zell’s Café in Southeast Portland. During that time she owned the also Savory Tart in the Hollywood District with her ex-husband.

For the last five or six years that she worked at Zell’s, Janet was really the face and personality that defined the restaurant’s success. Judy Sachek, who previously owned Besaw’s in Northwest Portland, had purchased the business from Tom Zell and promptly hired Janet back to work “the front of the house”.  Judy was a successful restaurateur, but of the iron-fisted, chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out variety.  Janet was the vessel that radiated the warm and gracious spirit of Tom Zell into the ethos of the café. In 2004 Janet entered into an agreement to purchase Zell’s from Judy but a couple of weeks before closing on the purchase in 2005 Janet learned that her partner and Judy’s friend, Nancy had made a different arrangement and Janet was unceremoniously sent packing.  Being left at the altar is tough on anybody but in hindsight it beats finding yourself married to a sociopath. For almost two years Janet nursed her bruises working in the piano business with her sidekick, David Bowles. But the siren’s song of the restaurant business lured her back and she began working at Meriwether’s in Northwest Portland, where she managed the front of the house until she began her full-time career at Bethany’s Table.

Bethany’s Table is Janet’s place. Certainly she has co-created it with David. But the freestyle cuisine is all hers, as is the commitment to comfort food and the simple use of fresh, local ingredients. She works the front, where her talent for hospitality is obvious. However, her heart is in the kitchen where she carves out all the time she can muster.