ORANGE — Once the door of the White Cloud restaurant in Orange is unlocked at 7 a.m., it doesn’t take long before customers eager for a good breakfast start making their way in. Long-time customers will notice that a lot of work has been done and the menu more varied than it may have been a couple of months ago.
That’s when the eatery was taken over by former Leominster residents Bill and Jennifer Sheldon.
“I have experience working in a restaurant, but I never owned a restaurant before this,” said Ms. Sheldon. “I worked in a restaurant for about 15 years when I was younger, and we have experience as business owners.”
The couple moved to the area about three years ago. “We’ve been coming out here for a good 20 years just taking our kids out to the country, going up by the Quabbin, driving around the area,” she said, “So, we’ve always loved it up here and we knew we wanted to buy a house up here.”
The couple was looking for a business in the area, and the opportunity came up for them to take over the White Cloud. “We wanted to really find something, to invest in the community,” she said, noting they now live in Athol, and “happened to be in the right place at the right time when it came to purchasing the eatery.”
At first, the couple didn’t know anyone in the area. “We found ourselves going to Herrick’s restaurant and also to Johnson’s Farm. We got to know the people at the restaurant pretty well,” she said, “So, when Steve and Dee (Johnson) decided they were going to retire, that was a turning point for us because there’s a need in the area for a restaurant that does breakfast and lunch.”
It’s a fairly long day for the Sheldons, their daughter, son and son’sfiancé; not to mention cook Joe Girard, who has been at the White Cloud for 12 years.
They arrive at the restaurant at about 6 in the morning, open at 7, and close at 2. Said Ms. Sheldon, “We’re usually done sometime between 4 and 5. It’s a long day. It’s about 12 hours. And we work seven days a week because, even though we’re closed on Tuesday, we’re still here to do cleaning, take in deliveries, do paperwork, all the stuff that needs to get done on Tuesday.”
According to the Sheldons, being located across the street from the Orange Airport, the restaurant’s clientele includes quite a few pilots, as well as residents in the neighborhood – including nearby seniors – and other locals.
“When the weather gets nice, we’ll have the skydivers as well,” she said. “A lot of young families are starting to follow us. We have a pretty good following on Facebook. The word’s getting out. We have a really good team of people that works for us. Everybody has a role to play and everything runs very smoothly.”
The White Cloud is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Monday. The restaurant does accept debit and credit cards.