Amapola drops dinner, becoming a unique Salinas lunch spot.

The equation is pretty straightforward. Open a wine market and restaurant, add dinner service, divide time between running a business and studying toward a coveted Master Sommelier rating and spend more time with the kids.

Wait...No way that adds up. For Jeffrey and Crystal Birkemeier it amounted to 14 or 15 hour days, to hustling back to the restaurant in the middle of the night to check on ribs set to low and slow, to catching only glimpses of family life.

So recently the couple erased dinner from the menu at Amapola Kitchen & Wine Merchant in favor of a Monday-Friday lunch schedule.

Quality of life has become a focus of many in food service, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. In this case, the Birkemeiers’ gains also pay quality of life dividends for their lunch guests.

To put it another way, Amapola Kitchen’s quiche Lorraine makes the day smile and the soul warm.

It’s so delicate in flavor and texture. A gentle tang of cheese tickles the palate. Dices of ruddy ham tease with wisps of sweet haze. Heartier smoked bacon would overwhelm the custard, and you want nothing to break the reverie. It’s a cloud drifting over a nutty, flaky crust and you are aloft.

Crystal Birkemeier handles kitchen duties. Her husband stocks the shelves with wine, seeking out bottles that bring the greatest value—not the least expensive, but the ones delivering the most in terms of character—while she creates a menu that is handy and appealing.

There are salads, with the most popular being arugula and beet studded by candied pecans. Four sandwich options make the current lineup, including a croque monsieur.

Béchamel topping the French ham and cheese classic also lends a creamy heft to lasagna and chicken pot pie. It’s an efficient menu, and one in which items can be prepared in advance.

The menu changes a few times each month as dishes are added or dropped. And desserts—the Meyer lemon tart with fresh blueberries is almost too much eye candy to disturb—are from scratch.

Amapola slots in somewhere between quick service lunch stands and leisurely sit down spaces.

Amapola Kitchen & Wine Merchant is open Monday-Friday, 11am-2pm. 32 W. Gabilan St., Salinas. 262-0075, amapolakitchenandwine.com