LOWELL — Walk in any entrance to City Hall during the week, and right away your nose will tell you that something delicious is happening in the building. Maybe it’s the smell of fresh-baked cookies or the aroma of grilled chicken wafting through the halls.
The aptly named City Hall Cafe opened in January. It is owned and operated by professional chefs Ed Vezina of Tyngsboro and Chris Cameron of Lee, N.H., who prepare the extensive breakfast and lunch menu items each day from scratch.
The original cafe at this basement location closed during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, and when restrictions were lifted, the city put the concession back out to bid. That’s when Vezina and Cameron, longtime coworkers in the food service business, decided to make the leap from corporate cooking to running their own kitchen.
“I worked in the health care food service industry for close to 30 years. During COVID, I was working 70 to 80 hours,”…
