By ERIN EDGEMON, Business Editor - April 6, 2008

Chef Julio Orantes is now serving up his delectable gourmet cuisine daily for lunch.

He is opening up The Chef Place at 810 Medical Center Parkway in the US Bank-anchored shopping center daily to lunch patrons. The small storefront can accommodate 20 diners.

“We are trying to attract the lunch business,” Orantes said by offering an affordable menu and popular items such as quiche.

The Chef Place still offers its dinners-to-go and frozen casseroles in addition to catering, personal chef services and culinary classes, which Orantes calls culinary get-togethers.

A few of the lunch menu items include a weekly quiche special, tortilla soup or soup of the day, Caribbean chicken and black bean salad and several varieties of sandwiches and pasta.

Lunch specials start at $4.95.

The Chef Place also has an extensive menu of entrees including chicken marsala, roasted pork loin and Shrimp Julio.

“If they try it once they will come back,” Orantes said of his food. “I am sure of that.”

The Chef Place offers lunch specials daily from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., but diners can eat in the restaurant during regular business owners 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.

Orantes opened The Chef Place in August 2006 to offer affordable, gourmet cuisine to families on the go. Orantes' long resume includes executive chef positions at the former Arthur's Restaurant in the Union Station Hotel in Nashville and the Parthenon Steak House in Murfreesboro.

Check out The Chef Place’s new Web site at www.chefplace.net. Call 895-2433 for daily specials and information on culinary classes.

•••

Graffiti’s is finally close to opening.

Co-owner Kevin Ray said the bar located at 2962 S. Rutherford Blvd. should be open within the next two to three weeks pending approval from the city of Murfreesboro Building and Codes Department and receipt of a permit to sell beer and alcohol.

The sign for the bar is now up at the strip center located in front of the Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Ray described Graffiti’s as more of a live music venue rather than a typical Murfreesboro college bar. Graffiti’s will feature a house band that will be made up of a variety of rotating professional musicians.

Erin Edgemon can be reached at 869-0812 and at eedgemon@murfreesboropost.com.