The menu was full of all sorts of things: burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches. Then something happened that often happens in restaurants and that almost no one really expects: customers started coming back again and again for the same dish—the breakfast burrito. Today, some people wait in line for three hours just to get their hands on one.
The Story
At eleven in the morning, in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Cypress, the line is already starting to wind its way toward the shopping cart area. People in work clothes, young folks with coffee in hand, families stopping by “just to try it out.” You’d hardly notice the place if you didn’t know where it was: a sort of small, light-colored building, barely bigger than a garage, squeezed between the parking lot traffic and the constant slamming of car doors under the California sun. Inside, Lydia Holmes is heating tortillas while John Clarke keeps an eye on the eggs on the griddle. Neither of them had studied cooking; neither came from prestigious schools or fine-dining kitchens. Four years after opening, that tiny place called LJ’s Lil’ Cafe closed out 2025 with $2.3 million in sales—the young entrepreneurs tell CNBC.
Put that way, it sounds like one of those American stories tailor-made to go viral. In reality, things started off slowly. Very slowly. Holmes and Clarke have known each other since 2012, when they worked together at Seasons 52 in Costa Mesa. They often ate out, especially at small places—the kind without neon signs—where you find dishes that stick with you even the next day. They’d come home and try to recreate them. They’d swap out ingredients, add their own touches, and mess up a lot. At some point, the idea of opening a restaurant stopped feeling like a late-night fantasy. When they discovered a small shed with a fully equipped kitchen for sale in the Home Depot parking lot in Cypress, they decided to take the plunge. It cost $95,000—money borrowed from a family member. They’re still paying it back in installments today. The location, which seemed absurd to many, was almost reassuring to them. John Clarke puts it bluntly: “We already had people around all day.” Construction workers, store employees, customers on their lunch break. A constant stream of people.
They opened on September 4, 2021, with Lydia’s younger brothers as their first employees. They were still living with her parents to save on rent, and at first, their earnings were minimal. Two hundred dollars on a weekday was considered good news. A significant portion came from Home Depot employees. The menu was full of different items: burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches. Then that thing happened that often happens in restaurants and that almost no one really anticipates. Customers started coming back for the same dish over and over: the breakfast burrito. What they now call the OG is filled with crispy potatoes, bacon, eggs, and an almost embarrassing amount of cheese. Clarke is very particular about the potatoes: they put twenty-five in every burrito because he wants every bite to be crispy. The cheddar and Monterey Jack, on the other hand, ooze out everywhere as soon as the tortilla is cut in half. It’s the kind of food that gets your fingers dirty after thirty seconds.
For months, they carried on with almost no knowledge of marketing. No serious social media presence, no strategy, no newsletter. Lydia laughs about it now, but at the time, it felt like they were winging it. Then a freelance journalist tried their burrito and published a rave review on Eater. The next day, the atmosphere in the parking lot changed completely. People arrive before opening, wait standing next to their cars, and take pictures of the food as soon as it comes out of the kitchen window. Clarke still remembers their first day of $1,000 in sales as more of a shock than a celebration. Before long, wait times became insane: even two or three hours for a burrito.
Yet no one seems willing to leave. Meanwhile, Lydia and John continue to live immersed in the restaurant, practically without a break. They work together, raise two children together, and talk about the restaurant late into the night. “We talk about work until eleven at night,” she says with a laugh. And in that sentence, you can feel all the exhaustion of couples who have turned a shared idea into a massive machine that never stops running. Perhaps the most curious thing about their story is the historical moment in the restaurant industry. While half the industry chases after sleek aesthetics, minimalist branding, and menus designed like conceptual manifestos, one of California’s most profitable culinary success stories was born next to a tool warehouse, among customers covered in paint and burritos dripping with cheddar.
