TRUE SALVAGE, TRUE COMMUNITY
- Amy Lynn-Cramer
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
A neighborhood café where the customers are old friends
By Amy Lynn-Cramer
L: Signe Heffernan; R: Silvestre Cordero. Photos by Julia Maloof Verderosa.
On a quiet stretch of Elmwood Avenue, there’s a café that feels less like a business and more like a living room. It’s a place where people know your name, your kids hug the owners and regulars stop by for food, conversation and connection.
That place is True Salvage Kitchen.
At the center of it all is Signe Heffernan, executive chef, creative force and steady heartbeat of a destination that has become something far bigger than a meal.
Heffernan grew up in Maplewood. In her 20s, she left to figure things out, spending a decade in Boston, working in kitchens and learning the realities of the food industry from the ground up. When she returned home in February 2019, it wasn’t with a master plan to take over a restaurant. In fact, it started with a phone call from her dad, David Heffernan.
Her father is an antiques dealer and one of the artists who collaborated on the cover art for Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti and The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls, among many others. He had opened a café space to showcase his handmade salvaged furniture, art and objects. “Everything inside had a past. Everything had a story,” says Signe Heffernan. “But within a month, my dad realized that running a food business was a different beast altogether.”
So he sought help from his daughter, who had studied culinary arts at the Art Institute of New York City. “What started as a temporary fix, quickly became something deeper,” says Signe Heffernan. “I’ve always loved small, mom-and-pop spots, the kind where you know your customers, where it feels personal. I wanted that. Not just a café, but a neighborhood place.”
She brought with her years of experience working every position in the kitchen, including dishwasher, line cook, baker and manager. “You can’t really understand how a restaurant works unless you’ve done all of it,” Heffernan says. “Those ‘small’ jobs are the ones that make or break the whole thing.”
What happened next wasn’t a takeover, it was a transformation.
True Salvage Kitchen slowly evolved from a simple neighborhood coffee shop in Maplewood. It was once best known for its Taylor Ham and egg sandwiches, a staple that earned NJ.com’s 2020 award for Best in the State. It is now a thoughtfully-curated café offering baked goods, dinners to go, pantry staples, tapas nights, private events and catering, all driven by instinct, experience and deep care. In 2024, NJ.com again took notice, naming True Salvage Kitchen one of New Jersey’s 21 Best Hidden Restaurants.
“Signe brought her culinary background and her love for small, community-centered places to True Salvage,” says Silvestre Cordero, her husband and the familiar face of the front of the house. “She was clear from the beginning that this needed to be a place where people felt known.”
That vision is embedded everywhere, from the reclaimed tables her father built, the ever-changing menu and the way customers are greeted like old friends.
True Salvage Kitchen's farm-to-table philosophy begins with produce sourced directly from Amish farmers, shaping menus that change week by week. “Vegetables are celebrated, challenged and transformed,” says Heffernan. “We hear it all the time. People tell us they hate mushrooms, kale or carrots, until they try them here.”
During the pandemic, Heffernan and Cordero persevered by biking deliveries to customers within a mile radius. One cooked and the other rode orders to the neighborhood. “We just kept going,” she says. “Every day felt like it could be the last, but we weren’t ready to give up.”
They thought Covid would be what broke them. It wasn’t.
“Hurricane Ida was harder than Covid,” Heffernan says. “It flooded our basement to the ceiling and nearly shut us down. It was instant. Unreal.”
Once again, the community stepped in. Neighbors, volunteers and even customers helped them dig out and rebuild. “People really wanted us to make it,” she says. “That mattered.”
But the most defining chapter in True Salvage’s story wasn’t a pandemic or natural disaster. It began as a health crisis. After getting sick following the pandemic, Heffernan was eventually diagnosed with celiac disease. Working with gluten was making her dangerously ill. “It was getting into my skin, my hair, the air,” she says. “I was sick all the time.”
Doctors warned her that continuing could cost her life. “The choice was stark: close the café or completely reimagine it,” says Heffernan.
In April 2025, True Salvage Kitchen went gluten free.
She knew the decision could mean losing customers, especially those who came for familiar staples. “But what emerged was something unexpected and extraordinary,” she says. “A community of people who finally felt safe.”
“For people who spent years navigating food with fear, this has become a place where they can finally relax,” says Heffernan. “It also means welcoming families who are managing multiple allergies and then watching their kids eat a brownie (safely) for the first time.”
“We found True Salvage after the transition to a gluten-free café,” says Sarah Fischler of West Orange. “As an allergy family, it has become one of those rare places where we feel completely comfortable. They remember our needs, ask clarifying questions and practice extreme care without being asked.”
That sense of safety comes from precision as much as care. “Reimagining True Salvage didn’t mean chasing gluten-free substitutes or recreating familiar dishes exactly as they were,” says Heffernan. Instead, she rebuilt the menu from the ground up, centering flavor, texture, and intuition over imitation. “Vegetables, slow-cooked proteins, umami-rich mushrooms, purées and carefully balanced fats became the foundation – elements that never relied on gluten in the first place.”
Heffernan describes her approach to food as intuitive. “I can taste dishes in my head before I ever make them,” she says. Years of cooking and being unable to eat her own food sharpened her senses. “Smell, texture, balance,” she says. “Nothing is accidental.”
“We listen closely,” says Heffernan. “If the community tells us they want more of something, we pay attention.” That philosophy may be why people travel from Queens, Washington, D.C., even Georgia, just to eat here. “We’ve had people come straight from the airport,” says Cordero. “First stop.”
But some of the most meaningful moments at True Salvage Kitchen are much closer to home. During the pandemic, a couple brought their newborn baby into the café. “We were the first people they introduced their child to outside their family,” says Heffernan. “Today, that baby is a regular, happily eating tapas alongside her parents.”
For many regulars, tapas night has become a ritual. “The meals are consistently some of the best I’ve had and rival any five-star restaurant I’ve eaten at in the city,” says Charell Star, a Maplewood resident. “We usually order one of everything, especially since there are always new dishes alongside beloved favorites that return each time. The patatas bravas are a standout. We feel incredibly lucky to have such a special spot right in our backyard.”
There are the kids who call the café asking for Cordero by name and the hand-drawn cards carefully saved behind the counter. On the night Heffernan and Cordero were married, they opened their doors toward the end of the night and invited in their community. “Our customers came to celebrate with us,” she says. “They’re part of this place.”
For many families, True Salvage Kitchen has become a place to mark their own milestones, too. “We’re there often, sometimes several times a week,” says Fischler. “Having a place like this in our community is the most beautiful gift.”
When asked about the future, Heffernan doesn’t talk about expansion for expansion’s sake. She talks about deepening what already works: more dinners-to-go, more private events, more ways to serve families navigating allergies, time and life.
True Salvage Kitchen is run by the couple. There’s no staff and no sick days, but there are long hours that stretch late into the night. “This place is our kid,” Heffernan says. “Every hour is about this place.”
In taking True Salvage Kitchen off her father’s hands, Heffernan didn’t change its heart – she clarified it. What was once a space for stories became a place where new ones are made every day.
Amy Lynn-Cramer is the founder of Cramer Connect, a boutique agency that specializes in career coaching and communications.
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