Meet the owner of Bella Vita Café, Oneida’s newest bakery and coffee shop

Oneida, N.Y. — Lori Seef had always dreamed of bringing people together and brightening their day from her very own space in downtown Oneida.

With freshly roasted coffee and maybe a cream puff (or two), customers can now walk away from her dream come true: Oneida’s newest café and bakery and her first business endeavor, Bella Vita Café.

Lori has a knack for making people feel welcomed, a trait that’s evident upon first walking into her shop. Her natural warmth strengthened her former role as the manager of Walgreens/Rite Aid in Cazenovia. She’d been with the company for 25 years, but that all came tumbling down when she got sick in February of this year.

A tumultuous battle with pneumonia, then COVID, then bronchial pneumonia caused Lori to walk away from a job she loved doing; as she faced the aftermath of her illnesses, it had become a struggle for her to breathe. Following this challenge, her then-fiance, George Seef, asked her a very important question: “What is one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but never did?” She had raised a family, excelled in her career, and beat a life-threatening disease—it was time to take a leap.

“I never got to work in Oneida, and I always wanted a little bakery and coffee shop on Main Street,” Lori told the Dispatch.

Soon after sharing her dream with her fiance, the keys to the former Hinman Jewelers were in her hands, to her surprise. “You rented me out an empty jewelry store?” she asked him, puzzled. Lori recalled his response: “He goes, ‘No, you can make it anything you want it to be, you’re not going back to Walgreens.'”

The shop was his gift to her for their wedding. The couple later got married on May 15, 2021.

Born and raised in Oneida, Lori knew the ins and outs of her community and had the connections to get her dream off the ground. Gale Garrison, a close friend and baker for Ace of Cakes, creates a myriad of treats for Bella Vita. Cakes, cookies, brownies, fudge, pies, scones—this is Garrison’s expertise after baking for over 30 years and once owning her own shop, The Rolling Pin, in Sylvan Beach. If there’s something missing from Bella Vita’s menu, special requests can be made.

The café, open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., also offers products from the surrounding area, including some favorites that Lori wanted to share with her home city. Shipments of half-moon cookies, jelly buns, headlights, fingers, cream puffs, tomato pies, and more are delivered fresh each morning from Holland Farms in Yorkville.

On Fridays, freshly baked bread, tomato sauce, and garlic butter is provided by the Franklin Hotel, in Rome. The weekly special pays homage to Lori’s Italian roots and the memory of her family making big batches of sauce on Sundays.

Cracked Bean Roastery, in Syracuse, roasts Bella Vita Café its own unique coffee blend. It’s even-toned with no bite, Lori says. Customers have told her her iced coffee, in particular, has them coming back for more.

The construction transformation from jewelry store to bakery was done by Shawn Steding, who Lori shouted out for his dedication and the many hours spent bringing the shop to life.

His wife, Danette, helped Lori with the interior decorating. The two created what the owner calls a little bit of Italy and Manhattan in one. A Frank Sinatra radio station supplements the romantic atmosphere.

Bella Vita Café opened for the first time on August 16, and since then the owner has been in pure bliss. “It’s never work. I just, I love it. I get up at 4 o’clock every morning to be here, and I just can’t wait,” Lori said. “We have been so blown away by everyone’s support.”

Through positive energy and food, Lori hopes she can make even the tiniest difference in someone’s day, especially after the past year. She said she can see her customers’ moods change as soon as they walk in. “It takes me back to when I used to go into a bakery with my parents just down the road,” she reflected.

Many joke with her about the fear of weight gain caused by her delicious treats. To that, she tells them lovingly, “We grow together.”

Inside Hinman Jewelry

The former jewelers at 115 Main St. first opened in 1881 and had withstood the test of time, having impacted multiple generations of Oneida residents. The owners shut down the business in late June of 2020.

Over 100 years of jewelry history is within what is now Bella Vita. Seef said she’s found many artifacts, including a logbook from 1943 with records of engagement ring and wedding band purchases, and old watches and clocks discovered in an elevator shaft. A map of Amsterdam dating back to 1839 was found in the basement rafters.

Most notably, the store contains 2 huge safes dating back to 1881. With the help of a hydraulic jack and 4 strapping men, one safe weighing 6,000 pounds has been hauled up to the front of the shop as a decorative piece of history and intrigue. Its doors remain open for all to see the mechanisms within. “W. J. Hinman” is still etched in gold on the front.

Seef explained that the safes were placed inside the property before the storefront was installed—meaning that they can never leave. They don’t fit through the door.

Bella Vita’s front window cases are adorned with old photographs and other items harking back to the jewelry store’s past. Jack Wallace, a previous owner of the store, provided a photograph from his time.

The section of the former jewelry store that used to be a gift shop has been closed off. Seef saw that as a perfect opportunity to pay tribute to what once was by hanging the old storefront banner above the door that now blocks passage to the other side, creating a little Hinman’s inside the shop.

For more information about Bella Vita, call (315) 367-5001 or visit the Bella Vita Café on Facebook. Open Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. – 5 p.m.