BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Donna Crivello is the founder of both a business and a lifestyle.

“I wanted a place where people would come in, sit, relax and have a really good meal,” she said. “We wanted restaurant food in a cafe environment, with all the fresh breads and the coffees and the pastries. At the time, we didn’t feel like there were too many options in Baltimore.”

In 1992, she opened Donna’s Cafe Coffee and Bar with her partner Alan Hirsch — and with a chunk of buyout cash from the Baltimore Sun, where she worked for years in the art department. The cafe’s menu and decor reflect Crivello’s inspirations from European and Mediterranean travels.

Since then, other Donna’s locations have opened with their own personalities, chefs and menus — and customers.

“In Charles Village, Chef Andy [Thomas’] mac and cheese is popular,” Crivello said. “In Columbia, there is a pasta rustica made of whole-wheat pasta that people love.”

But Donna’s success is based on more than good food and coffee.

“I just think that it is a wonderful gathering place in the community,” said Cheryl Casciani, a Mt. Vernon resident and twice-daily patron at her neighborhood Donna’s. “People of all sorts are there all the time, and everyone is accepted.”

The Donna’s mantra, and coffee, is spreading beyond Maryland.

Crivello and Hirsch recently expanded into Overlook Hospital in New Jersey at the request of its new administrator, a transplant from the University of Maryland hospital.

As a successful cafe owner, Crivello’s own lifestyle depends on the whims of her customers. But she gladly helps out.

“When the weather gets better, we get busier, and I am in there busing tables or planting flowers [outside],” she said. She described her main concerns as the little things and the big things. “My staff makes sure everything else runs smoothly,” she said.

Thomas has been with Donna’s on and off for 12 years.

“Donna is here, she is involved every day, but she lets me experiment with what I want to do [with the menu],” Thomas said. “I think she has filled a void in the last 15 years. People didn’t eat things like olive oil back then.”

aminkowski@baltimoreexaminer.com