Photography By Lindsay Grace Photography
For Mary Martin—owner of The Clay House Cafe, a newly opened café, coffee shop and event space in Lebanon—crafting delicious food and coffee is a true labor of love.
Martin and her husband, Seth, opened the spot together in September 2024, under the same branding umbrella as their Lancaster County-based catering company and bedand-breakfast. The throughline across all of their businesses? A dedication to delicious flavors and an exceptional customer experience.
“We love food. Our first date was making food together—little did we know how far it would take us,” Martin says. “We’ve grown a lot, experimenting and creating foods that we love and that we’ve found other people love. I always wanted to have a café,” she says, “[The Clay House] has a lot of dreams behind it.”
“We had a lot of experience making breakfast and dinners [at the bed-and-breakfast], and we found that people really enjoyed our food,” Martin says. “So when the opportunity came up to open a café, we were thrilled to be able to implement a lot of the menu options that we have at our bedand-breakfast and catering [business].”
Popular items at The Clay House Cafe include a signature citrus pork sourdough panini and their BLT (which includes all of the classic ingredients one would expect, plus whipped goat cheese and pepper jelly). For breakfast, customers have been loving their classic eggand-cheese sandwich.
Their sandwiches are served on house-made sourdough and oatmeal breads, according to Martin.
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Photography By Lindsay Grace Photography
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Photography By Lindsay Grace Photography
“[Our breads] are delicious. Something that people have always raved about at our catering events is that we slice homemade bread," she says. "It’s definitely a highlight of every meal.”
Before the Martins launched their catering operation, they got their start in the food and beverage industry in 2018 by opening a mobile coffee bar for weddings and other events. It should come as no surprise, then, that The Clay House Cafe prioritizes serving delicious locally roasted coffee from Kitty Town Coffee in Lebanon.
“When the café came up, we were like, ‘Well, we know what coffee we love,’” Martin says, adding that Kitty Town deserves "a huge shout-out, they do an amazing job.”
In addition to their classic coffee offerings, she says their team has also been “having a lot of fun” crafting monthly drink specials, inspired by seasonal flavors.
Since opening earlier this year, The Clay House Cafe has been "getting a lot of really great reviews in person and online," Martin says. "We are trying to get the word out that we have a nice dine-in experience, serving breakfast and lunch.”
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Photography By Lindsay Grace Photography
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Creating an exceptional customer experience for everyone who walks through their doors is a priority for the Martins and their team.
“We put a lot of time and care into presentation in all three facets of our business because we do enjoy celebrating food,” Martin says. “That’s one way of making the customer feel special, when [they see] that their plate was taken care of and designed nicely.”
Photography By Lindsay Grace Photography
She adds, “The way we present [our food] at the café, the way we present it in our catering, or at the bed-and-breakfast—it’s just a celebration of food.”
The Clay House Cafe | 720 Quentin Rd, Suite 3, Lebanon 717-304-5144 | theclayhousecafe.com
