The breakfast rush at Lucy’s Café West is a well-choreographed dance, with David Lepe darting through the tiny restaurant taking orders, clearing tables, and greeting customers — both old and new — with warmth and energy to spare.
“Anyone can prepare a taco, but there’s a significant difference between a delicious one, especially when people can sense and taste the love that goes into making it,” said Lepe, who manages the family restaurant at 6600 N. Mesa.
But in 2013, during the same month Lepe opened Lucy’s Café West, his world shifted. A colon cancer diagnosis threatened to end not just his dreams of expanding his mother’s restaurant legacy, but his life itself…