“Food is all we’ve ever done,” Brian says. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Brian has been cooking since he was 15. Through working in New Orleans as a hotel chef for two years, he embraced the charm and atmosphere of the “Big Easy.” He and Jane met a few years later when they were working together at a local hotel, where she was a server.

“The idea for Sloppy Janes all came together there,” Brian recalls. “One day, I was talking with a friend who is also a business consultant. We brainstormed and came up with the name Sloppy Janes – we wanted a name that was a bit different.”

Jane admits that she wasn’t crazy about the name at first. “Since my name is Jane, I was concerned that people might think I was sloppy or that the restaurant wasn’t clean. I’m always very neat and we keep the restaurant spotless. The name is intended to convey the fact that we’re a casual place,” she says with a smile. Jane gets the credit for creating the Raggedy Ann-like face that’s part of the restaurant’s logo.

Décor-wise, Sloppy Janes combines French Quarter flair with a hint of Lancaster County. Light spills in from the large front windows. A pale-yellow slat wall accented with blue provides the backdrop for the photos and logos of New Orleans, while brightly colored booths reflect the casual atmosphere. “I liked the yellow – it’s bright and cheerful. Yellow and purple and green are the colors of Mardi Gras, so we thought that was fitting,” Jane explains.

The restaurant’s unique brand of camaraderie comes courtesy of a love of dogs. Brian and Jane have two dogs: Cooper, a Newfoundland, and Lola, a golden retriever. Brian stresses that both he and Jane are firm believers in adopting shelter dogs and their four-legged family members came to them via the Humane League. The dogs have a presence in the restaurant – a painting of them done by Jane’s mother hangs above the cash register. “Our dogs are like family and we know that many of our customers feel the same way about their dogs, so we created an area where they can share photos of their pets. You get to be better friends through your pets; pets are a real icebreaker in conversations,” Jane says.

The photo gallery is contained on bulletin boards that line one side of the hallway that leads to the restrooms. There’s even a memorial board for pets. “We’ve been in business for so long that we’ve had to start the memorial board. When I hear that someone’s pet has passed on, we move the photo to the memorial area,” Brian explains.

The bulletin boards on the other side of the hallway are filled with photos from Brian’s other interest: auto racing.

Sloppy Janes serves lunch – it’s their busiest time of day – and dinner. “When we moved to our current location, we didn’t realize it, but we found out later that we moved closer to many of the businesspeople who visit us over lunch,” Jane notes. To accommodate busy schedules, customers can phone ahead or fax their orders. “We know people have limited time at lunch, so we try to get everyone through as quickly as possible, but we always have friendly service and we don’t compromise on quality of food,” she says.

Brian is Sloppy Janes’ chef and he states that fresh, quality ingredients such as freshly sliced tomatoes are important to the Sloppy Janes menu. “Everything is made to order

Like the décor, the menu combines local favorites and American fare, notably the best of New Orleans. The menu includes a variety of hot and cold sandwiches, hoagies (hot and cold), steak sandwiches, Sloppy Toasters (a hoagie passed through the toaster oven), wraps and New Orleans-style sandwiches including po-boys (the New Orleans version of a hoagie) made with fried shrimp, fried catfish, fried oysters or fried chicken, as well as fried alligator and fried crawfish.

“We have a pretty large menu. About 18 months ago, we scaled it back a bit – we had 153 items, now we have 131 items. The menu is large enough that if someone wanted to come in for lunch every day, he or she could have something different every day,” Brian observes. Prices were also lowered about a year ago in response to the economic downturn and there’s a 10-item “Value Combo Menu,” which includes a sandwich, chips and a drink for a set price.

Popular items include the grilled Reuben, cheesesteaks, sweet-potato fries, onion straws and the muffellatta (a New Orleans specialty sandwich made with Genoa, cappacola, salami, ham, provolone and Swiss on a Kaiser roll and finished with Sloppy Janes’ olive-and-garlic spread). Sloppy Janes also offers a warm Cajun pork sandwich that features a special mayo developed by Brian. “The Cajun pork sandwich is a hearty, stick-to-your-ribs kind of pork sandwich. It’s packed with meat,” Jane says. The restaurant’s signature sandwich is the Sloppy Janes pork barbecue. “It’s a cross between a cheesesteak and a pork barbecue,” Brian explains.

The menu also features three or four soups that are made fresh daily. During the summer, selections include chilled soups such as peach, Key lime or strawberry. “If it’s a good soup, Lancaster Countians will eat soup year-round,” Brian remarks, adding that potato soup is one of the café’s top sellers. There are also daily specials and party trays are available, as well.

As if the menu variety isn’t enough of an attraction, Sloppy Janes also sells 147 different hot sauces. “I’ve always liked hot sauces and even get some from New Orleans,” Brian reports. “Some of them have incredibly funny names like ‘See Jane on Fire.’” He explains that about a third of the sauces are there because they’re extremely hot, another third are made available because of their names or fancy labels, and the rest are included simply because they taste good. Sloppy Janes also has its own house brand of hot sauce: Columbia Avenue Road Kill, which Brian describes as a combination of sweet and spicy. “The display for the hot sauces is near the cash register, and people will wait in line and read the names of the hot sauces. You’ll often hear them chuckle or tell their friend that they should try a particular sauce,” Jane says.

With so much emphasis placed on hot sauces, po-boys and photos of the Big Easy, one would expect that Mardi Gras is not just another day at Sloppy Janes. Brian and Jane bring a New Orleans-style celebration to Lancaster with their version of Mardi Gras. The café is festively decorated, Cajun music adds to the atmosphere and gumbo, crawfish, jambalaya and other New Orleans favorites are added to the menu. In case you missed the festivities last month, an event they call “halfway to Mardi Gras” will be held this summer. “It’s a scaled-back version of what we do on Mardi Gras, but it’s still fun. We love it and our customers love it,” Jane says.

Sloppy Janes is located at 1831 Columbia Avenue (Wheatland Shopping Center). Hours: Mon.-Thurs. & Sat., 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; and Fri., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Call 295-1300 or visit www.sloppyjanes.com.