Tilly Market Cafe opens for food, coffee and community

BELMONT — John and Keri Dunn were caught in a tug-of-war between Manchester, where they worked, and the Lakes Region, where they wanted to live. The Lakes Region won the battle last month, when the Dunns opened Tilly Market Cafe in Belknap Marketplace.

The Dunns are veterans of the food industry. They met in at a restaurant in Manchester, owned a deli together, and when they became parents, John went to work for a restaurant management group while Keri returned to the world of dance instruction.

The Dunns have learned a few things about the restaurant business along the way, and those lessons — that food can be healthy and tasty, and that eateries can become community gathering spaces — are on display at Tilly.

Tilly Market Cafe is named after an Irish idiom that could be translated as “a little something extra.” When he was a boy, he said, his grandmother would press a quarter into his palm and say, “Here’s a tilly for you, go get something fun.”

Dunn said he applied that glint to Tilly. It’s a “coffee shop, cafe and a little bit more. Do a little bit extra, put a better quality product out there, focus on Irish hospitality and service.”

Nourishing food

Dunn said he and Keri saw a few places, such as in Laconia and Meredith, which succeeded by offering fresher, healthier offerings, and that there was a need for such a place in Belmont. They also appreciated what the new owners of Belknap Marketplace — formerly known as the Belknap Mall — had done with the property. That’s why they decided to go with the business model they landed on, and why they decided to locate it there.

“There’s a lot of healthy lifestyle stuff going on here,” Dunn said of the indoor marketplace, specifically noting the established Planet Fitness and incoming pickleball business.

Tilly Market’s coffees, smoothies and acai bowls are already popular with people stopping by to refuel after a workout. Breakfast foods include toasts and egg sandwiches. For lunch, there’s salads, grain bowls and wraps.

“We’ve been well received, people are excited about the menu, things you can’t get everywhere,” Dunn said. Tilly serves beer and wine and is open into the evening, and Dunn said they plan to add a tapas-style menu to entice the dinner crowd.

Fulfilling conversations

Dunn said he hopes Tilly will be a place people come not just to eat and drink, but also a place to meet people.

Tilly has already become a coffee shop-office — a “coffice,” as Dunn calls it — for people who have put the free WiFi to use. A couple community groups have also taken advantage of the meeting room, which has space for up to 20 people. The main dining room, with space for up to 50, can also be reserved for larger functions.

Tilly is also a place where people can meet new faces. An L-shaped bar is the first closest available seating to the service counter, and a sign above it marks it as the “talking table;” anyone who sits there is open for a chat.

“People have been coming in, grabbing a coffee, engaging in conversation,” Dunn said.

Autumn marks the start of the offseason for the Lakes Region, which might be considered an inauspicious time to open a business. Dunn said they’re fine with the timing, though, because Tilly is aimed more at people who make up the backbone of the area, rather than the visitors who come and then go.

“This is something that we can really connect to the community with this type of business,” Dunn said. “I believe in this community. I believe there’s more people here yearround. That’s who we’re marketing to.”