About Milkweed Cafe

Who owns Milkweed Cafe? Milkweed Cafe is owned by Cindy & Dave Hepp in Pinckneyville, Illinois.

How did you begin? Our original butterfly release business opened in 1996. The business was the result of an interest in gardening for butterflies and wildlife . Initially, Cindy owned and operated that butterfly release business which provided butterflies for special occasions. Because of other professional and personal demands, that extremely time consuming business was sold.

Due to the desire to stay in the butterfly business in some capacity, a new business in a more manageable form was born. It first offered a small selection of butterfly merchandise and live caterpillars during the summer months.

Various butterfly & nature merchandise was eventually added to our merchandise line, making it a year round venture. Eventually, the business grew too large for one person to handle on a part time basis, so Dave agreed to come on as co-owner to help run things and take over much of the work load.

This is intentionally a small business and the focus is on quality and excellent customer service rather than large quantity sales.

Milkweed Cafe? That's a strange name. Agreed! Strange, but fits the origins of our business perfectly. Because we began our business raising monarch butterflies, we found that the most time consuming part of our business was keeping the monarch caterpillars provided with lots of fresh milkweed plants. Milkweed Cafe seemed like an appropriate name when so much time was spent serving up meals of milkweed.

Home Nature Shoppe Butterfly Garden Fascinating Facts

Wedding & Party Favors Kids Club E-Mail