The Hangry Lady opens storefront to new growth in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — Although she didn’t always know what it would look like, The Hangry Lady’s owner, Allie Lanham, said her New Bohemia storefront feels just the way she dreamed it would — a place where she’s excited to go to work.

With a space as beautified as the food, the young entrepreneur who came up through respected former restaurants like Caucho and Popoli, has found her niche at the intersection of art and food.

Her business, which first earned a name for itself through artistic charcuterie boards and catered “grazing tables” in Cedar Rapids, set up shop on the corner of Third Street and 11th Avenue SE in September after outgrowing her stall across the street at NewBo City Market.

Since first opening in 2021, the business growth has outpaced projections, with orders doubling every year.

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But you don’t need a large order to try a bite of her soups, salads and delectable desserts. Now, the catering business is a bona fide restaurant, too, offering a new niche in the Cedar Rapids restaurant scene for healthy, inclusive eats that taste good, too.

“People think (Cedar Rapids customers) are meat and potatoes people — simpletons who don’t appreciate anything cool or fun,” Lanham said. “I knew that wasn’t the case.”

How she got hangry

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The name itself is an ice breaker — something that would make passersby smile or start a conversation when the business started in NewBo City Market. The nickname, earned in high school, was predestined as a business proposal by a journal entry Lanham, now 27, wrote during her teenage years.

After losing 60 pounds in high school through self-taught healthy eating and a pescetarian diet, Lanham went to Kirkwood Community College to become a dietitian and help others get healthy, too. But quickly, she found out that career path didn’t offer the kind of engagement she wanted to have with clients.

“Food was the enemy for a long time. I think the way it changed is that I was proving to myself that food could taste good while being healthy,” she said.

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After switching to culinary school, she graduated from Kirkwood in 2019. Before long, she climbed the ranks and made a name for herself at the former Caucho in the NewBo neighborhood. There, she was named one of the “40 Women to Watch” by the Iowa Restaurant Association in her first year of service.

During a brief stint at the former Popoli Italian restaurant in Kingston Village, the artist kept in touch with her creative side by making “grazing tables” for the business — artistic charcuterie boards she’d seen take hold on the West Coast. And when Popoli closed, she made a side business out of those charcuterie boards, leading her to open up shop in NewBo City Market, where rent was affordable.

“I’ve always loved the artistry of food,” she said. “I knew for a long time I wanted a business one day called The Hangry Lady, I just didn’t know what it would be or when I would do it.”

The new space

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At the corner formerly occupied by Rawlicious, The Hangry Lady continues a legacy of health-oriented menus with robust offerings for vegetarians, vegans and those with food sensitivities.

With an entire wall covered floor to ceiling with the owner’s own varied art — which is also available for to-go purchases — the aesthetic of Lanham’s flourishing new space matches her philosophy in cooking.

Even with weekly rotations, diners can expect some consistencies: There will always be two soups and two salads, with a vegan and gluten-free option in each category. Grab-and-go options abound across charcuterie boxes, cold-pressed juices and sweet treats that taste as good as they look.

With a heavy hand for seasoning inherited from her time at Caucho, the owner said customers may detect a slight Yucatan, Mexico, influence here and there.

“It’s a little bit of a catchall,” Lanham said of the menu. “Lunch is our main gig.”

But if you want to hang around, a few couches in the back and a smattering of tables and chairs make the bright, airy space conducive to relaxing or working, as one might in any cafe.

“Having this space was necessary to growing our catering business, (but) we didn’t want to keep it to ourselves and just run the catering business out of it,” she said, speaking of her employees, as well. “We wanted this to be a place where people can come, hang out and have lunch.”

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.