Healthy Made Easy: Guilt-free eating at Get Real Cafe

Veronica Ripp (right) and her wife, Judy Sinitz, have brought color to the outside of their location on Sturgeon Bay’s west side. Photo by Brett Kosmider.

Sunshine streams through the high windows of Sturgeon Bay’s Get Real Cafe, illuminating the colorful dishes coming from the open kitchen: a quinoa salad topped with red onions and avocado, an Italian sandwich with sun-dried tomatoes and artichokes, a bowl of pork-curry vegetable soup with garbanzo beans and mushrooms bobbing on the surface. The place smells delicious. 

Patrons drink their berry smoothies, cucumber juices or regular coffees as Veronica Ripp prepares yet another dish featuring organic, sustainable and as-local-as-can-be ingredients. She does it all, from whipping up the hummus to simmering the bone broth, whisking her homemade salad dressings to pulling apart tender meat. 

“Everything is made,” Ripp said, “except the mayo. I draw the line. Hellmann’s still can’t be beat.” And her following doesn’t seem to mind the jarred mayo: Since opening Get Real Cafe in 2014, the business has thrived, outgrowing its first location and keeping Ripp and her loyal staff very busy.

“I think a lot of people didn’t think we’d succeed because of the type of food I’m serving, but I’m busier than I ever thought I’d be,” she said. “I bought 25 pounds of spinach in February. In February! That’s insane. We’re not supposed to be that busy.” 

But a busy restaurant puts Ripp right in her element. She grew up in the Door County supper club scene – serving up many an old-fashioned, plate of deep-fried perch and slice of cherry pie – because her family owned The Nightingale in Sturgeon Bay for most of her life. 

“I did everything from setup to dishes to bartending,” she said. “Weddings. Banquets. I would pull 16-, 17-hour days. I grew up wanting my own little restaurant.”

Once Ripp reached adulthood, she decided to try something new. She sold Saturn vehicles for a few years and worked in a winery, but the restaurant industry was in her blood. 

“I didn’t want to open anything without having an education other than just one restaurant,” she said. 

In 2005, she enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Atlanta.  Ripp not only learned how to make incredible dishes, pick out distinctive flavor combinations and keep a kitchen spotless, but she also met people with similar aspirations who called upon her. 

“I got to be a part of a team, helping open new restaurants with new concepts in Georgia and North Carolina,” she said. “I learned a lot. Every restaurant is just so different.”

In 2010, Ripp made the move back to Door County and put her supper club apron back on. 

“I felt a little stifled moving back here – being a lesbian, being a local,” she said. “It was awkward for me. So I started cycling, then running. I was always athletic as a kid, so it wasn’t anything new to me, but I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t feel well. It was my diet. Turns out your body doesn’t perform well on prime rib and cheese curds.”

After helping at the family restaurant for a bit, she decided “it was time to just step back and say, ‘I’m doing my own thing,’” she said. Katie Nichols, a longtime friend and employee at The Nightingale, went along for the ride. 

“I remember her leaving [The Nightingale],” Nichols said, “and it was like, ‘Who’s coming with me?’” 

Ripp got to work arranging permits and licenses. She concocted a menu featuring fresh, high-quality ingredients that “satiates both sides,” as she puts it – those looking for something extra healthy and those giving in (guilt free) to a craving. “Sometimes you want a quinoa salad, and sometimes you just want a Cuban sandwich,” she said. What she wasn’t going to do was take shortcuts. 

“Having been around enough restaurants, I know so much is ordered frozen off the truck, dumped in a fryer and served,” she said. “That’s not what I want to do here. I did not go to culinary school and bust my butt to open a package and serve it.” The menu was also going to feature her favorite meal: big, substantial sandwiches. 

Within a few months, panini press in hand and Nichols by her side, Ripp opened Get Real Cafe in a small space on Madison Avenue on the west side of Sturgeon Bay. 

“I did everything on an induction burner, a panini press. I had a little half-sized oven I called my Easy-Bake oven,” she said. That entire restaurant would almost fit inside just the kitchen in her new location. 

The jump into the larger space scared her at first, but the location became easier to imagine and less frightening once she met her wife, Judy Sinitz, at the cafe. Sinitz is now an owner and general manager. “It’s not that I have any power, but it sounds good,” Sinitz said, broom in hand. She joined the team in August of 2021 after 40 years in healthcare. 

“After getting married, and having help in the kitchen, and financially and all together, it became a possibility where I wasn’t afraid of it,” Ripp said. 

Sinitz enjoys seeing where Ripp takes the menu. 

“Her combinations, her palate are amazing. Sometimes I look at the board and read the special and think, ‘I’d never eat that.’ Then she gives me a taste, and I say, ‘OK. I’d eat that.’ She’s able to find the intricacies of food.”

“When I sold Saturns, part of their philosophy was continuous improvement, and those bastards got in my head,” Ripp said with a laugh.

As far as Get Real Cafe’s food goes, patrons might argue that there simply are no improvements to make.