A new coffee shop and café from the owners of Balkan Treat Box is set to open in Webster Groves later this winter.
Telva at The Ridge and its adjoining event space, The Ridge Room, will be housed within the landmark Rolling Ridge Nursery at 60 N. Gore Ave. in downtown Webster Groves.
Telva, designed to be a grab-and-go café with limited seating, will offer Bosnian-style coffee, as well as open faced sandwiches, pastries, soups and more. The Ridge Room event space will offer family-style menus and be able to accommodate up to 60 people for daytime and evening gatherings. Booking will be available beginning March 2023. The space can also be used by café guests for overflow seating when available. There will also be additional seating in Rolling Ridge’s greenhouse in the winter and in the gardens in the summer.
Telva at The Ridge will be sourcing wood-fire roasted coffee for its coffee program, the same way coffee is roasted in Bosnia, with each cup brewed individually in a small copper pot called a “džezva.” Coffee grounds are then boiled with water for a strong bold flavor and served with sugar cubes. The name, Telva, translates to the coffee sediment at the bottom of the cup, which is said to give insight into people’s fortunes via tasseography, the method of telling fortunes through tea leaves, wine and coffee.
Food offerings will include Balkan-inspired café dishes like the Sloppy Mustafa, a take on a sloppy joe with the flavors of moussaka, and the Baklava Yogurt Parfait. Loryn Nalic, whose professional culinary career began in pastry, will also serve a rotating menu of breakfast pastries from the Balkan region such as potivica (sweet nut rolls similar to babka), palačinke (Balkan-style crepes) and baklava.
The new venture marks the expansion of the Nalic family’s involvement as restaurateurs. Husband-and-wife team Loryn and Edo Nalic started Balkan Treat Box as a food truck in 2017 and opened its Webster Groves storefront in Old Orchard in 2019. With the opening of the new café, the Nalics have announced that in addition to Loryn and Edo, Nalic’s brother and sister-in-law, Emir and Erna Nalic, will now jointly own and operate Balkan Treat Box and Telva at The Ridge. The family operation will also actively involve parents Fadil and Zehta Nalic, who recently received their green cards after 15 years.
“This is big for our family,” said chef-owner Loryn Nalic. “We’ve always talked about opening a café that serves coffee in the style that you would find in the Balkan region from Bosnian, Turkey and Greece. We live in Webster Groves, and when we heard the Rolling Ridge team was looking to open a café space, we felt that our team was ready to take on the project. We have received such overwhelming support from the community at Balkan Treat Box, and we look forward to extending that hospitality to Telva at The Ridge.”
Loryn Nalic, already an accomplished chef, learned to cook the food of her husband’s native Bosnia from his family and through travels abroad. When the Nalics opened Balkan Treat Box, it was an instant hit, earning a spot as one of Esquire’s Best New Restaurants, as well as recognition from other national culinary publications such as Bon Appetit.
