Nuanced. - Taste of Abby: Improve Your Cooking with Chef Jeff Massey

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Listen in as Aaron Pete engages in a fascinating conversation with Jeff Massey, co-owner and chef at Restaurant 62, exploring the vital role of local farming, the artistry of seasonal menus, the sourcing of local produce, and the complex craft of dish creation.Welcome to the Taste of Abby podcast mini-series! In this series, we'll explore Canada's largest farming community, connecting with farmers, creators, and restaurant owners. We'll dive into how they harvest from the land, strive towards sustainability, and strengthen our region. Join Aaron Pete as we deepen our connection to these lands and explore the tastes of Abby.Learn more about Restaurant 62: https://www.restaurant62.ca/Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Welcome to Taste of Abbey. I'm Aaron Pete from Chihuahawthal First Nation, and I host the Bigger Than Me podcast. In this series, we'll explore Canada's largest farming community, connect you with local farmers, creators, and restaurant owners. We'll dive into how they harvest from the land, strive toward sustainability, and strengthen the social fabric of our region. Join me as we deepen our connection to these lands and explore the Taste of Abbey. It's a beautiful day outside. Would you mind doing a brief introduction for people who might not be acquainted? My name is Jeff Massey. I'm one of the chefs and owners of Restaurant 62 in Abbotsford. Brilliant. And where are we today, Jeff? Right now we are in the middle of Dan Oosterbrink's farm here, local harvest, and we're just having a good look around. How did this

relationship start? How did you start working with Dan? Well, I live near here, so it was kind of an en route situation, but immediately fell in love with the quality of the products, the variety of things that we could get and the willingness to partner out. How did that partnership start? Did you sit down and go, how can we work together? What did that start? You know, we're all about in-season. So things caught my eye.

We stopped. We started purchasing. Again, you're always looking for a wholesale angle or a larger quantity than what's available in store sometimes. So basically, we just started ordering directly from Dan, whatever he had. Brilliant. And this is obviously different than ordering from a big box company that's delivering weekly.

Can you talk about the difference between shopping locally? Yeah, no, I mean, the differences are huge. Obviously, you're getting a box of imported produce that was picked at the wrong time, wrong place and put in a truck compared to right out the ground today, fresh, ready to go, hand-washed. Yeah, the difference is incredible. And what do you get from this farm? What are you looking for? We're always looking for everything that we can get.

You know, we want our beets, parsnips, carrots, all our lettuces, fresh herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, sometimes there's lemons, sometimes there's olives. You know, we're wide open to whatever we can get. So do you come out, pick it up yourself? How does that process work? How do you get it to the restaurant? At least once or twice a week. I'll stop in. They've got my order packed prepared, set in the walking cooler. We've got to grab one today while we're here. So maybe we'll catch some of that too. Sounds like there's a connection that you have where you discuss your plan for the year. How does that work? Yeah, it originally was just a phone call and a list and a quick email.

They've kind of modernized a little bit. There's an online platform where we can kind of see their catalog, see what's available, place our order. and then I know that it's going to be packed and ready when we're here. You work really hard to make sure people are connected to local foods. Why does local matter? Sometimes it goes without saying, but I'm curious from your perspective, why does shopping local matter so much? You know, a restaurant is not the easiest business to run. You're always looking to maximize the quality and maximize your usage

and try and save a little bit of money when you can. Buying local, in-season, and fresh, I get the best quality. there's always opportunities to use the best ingredients at the best kind of prices and it really helped our business survive through the ups and downs. It seems like this also allows you to put a shine on other local creators and people who are trying to make a difference in their communities, and I think that that's somewhat unique because you're lifting others up. What does that like for you?

You know, so much of our story is done behind the scenes. We put out great food. We're really proud of it. We put a lot of effort into what we make, But a lot of that effort still comes from the farm, from the early stages, from the growing, harvesting, washing. So we like to highlight their efforts because, you know, it's nice to see these starshine as well with their quality. How many other local vendors do you work with? Depending on the time of year, anywhere between 12 and 18.

Oh my gosh. And what are those relationships like? Some of them are very long term. Jason over at Mount Lehman Cheese, we've been buying cheese from since 2006, Maple Hill Farms. again, 2006. That's kind of when I took over the restaurant, and we started adjusting how we did things, and that brought the local and all of these other providers back into our restaurant. And that was just a way, again, for us to survive back then. It wasn't like we were trying to pioneer some big kind of brand and some movement. This was small business survival, and

shopping local was our key to success. It seems like people are hungry to connect with their local communities, shopping, local, and connecting. What is that like to have been a pioneer of something that's taken off so big? Yeah, I mean, it is kind of neat. You know, there was no intent. This wasn't, I wasn't drawing, drawing this up in 2006. It is great. I think that there's a real spot for that. There's a, there's a real need to get away from some of these big box stores. There's a real need to getting back into in-season. And, you know, it's, there's something about doing a bit more work at home and making products when you have a lot of it and then using it throughout the year, like getting back to some canning, doing your own tomato sauces, things like that

is kind of, you know, something that's really of interest to me. Can you tell us about how you got your start? When did you start becoming interested in food? I was one of those really lucky kids and my mom was a great cook at home. We always ate well and, you know, when you're young, you kind of take that for granted, then you kind of grow up knowing that's something that you really enjoy. I've been working in kitchen since us 14 and I've never had another job. Yale Town. That's where you got your start. Can you tell us about those early days? Yeah, I I did go to school in the spring of 2000. I went to a culinary school for a four-month program,

but then using that education, I started at Chepino's Mediterranean Grill on Hamilton Street, and that was pretty epic. What did you learn during that time there? Everything. Everything. Chepinos is a dining room with a big reputation, and it lives up to that reputation. It's a grind day in, day out,

but the type of ingredients, the quality of food that we made every single day, there, and the amount of learning I was able to do was pretty irreplaceable for me. Any big takeaways from that period? Yeah, good food is hard work. Interesting. So what brought you out? Oh, brilliant.

Okay, tell us about what we're seeing here. A couple of our current lunch favorites, so we've got our falafel salad with a grilled Mount Lehman, Hello Meat cheese on fresh lettuces, and then this is a seafood salad. So West Coast seafood over fresh, go cool, organic lettuce. Okay, walk us through some of the places where do we have to go to get some of these ingredients? Well, the, again, the Mount Lehman Cheese Works is just up in Olin Road here in Abbotsford. So that's Jason Dystra. He makes our Hulumi cheese.

These are West Coast prawns and scallops. Organic lettuces from Dan, carrots from Dan. Yeah. Brilliant. So going back to Yale Town, what do you think you took away deciding to start your own restaurant? What were some of the lessons you took away? One of the biggest lessons I took away was be 100% committed, but don't let the restaurant consume you. You know, it's a long day.

It's a lot of hard work. It can stack up, but you still have to make some time for yourself. So that was one of my biggest takeaways. You know, I grew a lot in confidence, you know, a lot of confidence knowing the products, working with the ingredients, making my own kind of dishes, and just being able to put food on a plate well was something that I learned there. that was really great. And then just so much introduction and methods and techniques and quality methods and techniques to quality ingredients and learning that there was pretty amazing. It seems like that would be a very fast-paced environment and then you come out to the Abbotsford Fraser Valley area. What was that change like and then taking over this restaurant?

Some of the biggest changes were just ownership. You know, I was somewhat naive in how much of a full-time job running businesses as well as how much of a full-time job being the only chef is, you know? As you grow and you're being trained, there's always somebody who's got more seniority, more authority than you, like even right up to the owner who was the chef at Chapinos. When it's just you and it's all on you and then you're trying to learn how to run a business at the same time, it can be pretty daunting, overwhelming. But, so it didn't really slow down. I think it sped up. And it was a bit more of a challenge to build a name and reputation for myself out here because I just kind of transplanted.

of moving from great dining room to great dining room to great dining room like I did in the city, you kind of get a bit of resume that a lot of people in the industry and the restaurant game kind of get to know. But moving out here, nobody knew me. So I had to really earn a lot of guests' confidence to come in and spend the money and try my food. How did you get started with Restaurant, 62? When I moved out to the Fraser Valley from Vancouver, the restaurant was for sale. I had just opened a brand new restaurant for the global group. kind of made a big commitment to them. And then after that, made a commitment to myself saying I didn't really want to work that hard for somebody else again. I wanted to do it for myself.

So coming out here, seeing that the business was available up for sale, kind of took the plunge and that was that. Where did the name come from? If I'm not mistaken, it started with this idea of 62 seats potentially. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I didn't open it originally. It was already kind of about a year and a half in operation when I took it over. Number one reason, number two, number three reasons, I guess it's kind of a kismet situation, but the first reason was, again, approval of 62 seats by the city for the floor plan. One of the owners originally is a former RC&P officer, so Code 6-2 is their meal break. But I think the biggest thing for Abbotsford in 2004, they did not want to have a descriptive name, kind of alluring to the type of food that you were

going to get. They wanted to be able to make really great food in a Yale town like setting. That was their idea and not be hemmed in by the name of any direction, just top quality food, top quality service without any kind of alliteration. So, yeah. Interesting. And where did the vision come in? Is this something you brought in where it was going to be local from the get-go? When did that start to develop? You know, that was necessity, you know. Early on, the restaurant was suffering. Obviously, it was for sale for a reason. Food costs were out of line. Food quality was kind of moving in a downward kind of trend. None of these are great for a restaurant. You know, basically the foundation of a good restaurant is the kitchen. I mean, all of the

other amenities are very important as well, but, you know, if the food's no good, nobody comes back. So I just changed how everything was done. There was no backdoor deliveries, if there was a very small amount of core ingredients or items, something like that. I was just willing to go and get. Find something close. Find something on the way to work. Find something in season. find a farm gate farm stand, dairy, duck, chicken, you know, local pork producer and make arrangements back then in 2006 when I took over. A lot of the farmers did not have the delivery systems that are in place today. So there was a lot of driving and you could even say hunting and gathering on our part just to go and get these ingredients. But doing so brought us and bought

us lower cost items, better quality items, more in season, more inspirational, less waste. better quality so it kind of hit the nail on the head on so many levels for us that that just became our business it's it seems like shopping local and thinking local has become very popular today but you were doing it in a time where it wasn't popular and it wasn't a priority what was that like during those early days um yeah it was difficult a lot of running a lot of hustling um it was a necessity like i said like it wasn't successful in the in the avenue we were going so we had to make a change part of being in that Yale town environment because it is such at the time of such a growing and bustling and hot

epicenter for great quality food on the Vancouver West Coast there was a sense of shopping like that because suppliers knew that there's eight great restaurants within a block so they would make the trip and drive so you'd get produce from Pemberton a few products throughout here in the Frays Valley microgreens from Barnston Island things like this so that sense of having that come-to-you sensation was something I was a little familiar with having, you know, great suppliers and being obviously downtown Vancouver, there's a lot more

options than there is all the way out here in the Fraser Valley. So I kind of got accustomed to having multiple small suppliers and taking their products. So we kind of just fell back in line with that. It was just I had to do a bit more driving, a bit more gathering and getting. But when you do that, you get out to someone's farm, their property, you get to meet them, meet their family, get a bit of a relationship, things like that. So it grows. On that, it seems like community building is something popular said, but you were really doing it, and you've developed this so that farmers now are able to think about this beyond just working with you, that this is now a mindset they're able to bring. What is it like to build that community? It is really great. It's

kind of something that happens natural because, you know, like a farmer's going to grow something, but then they've got it, and it's beautiful, but they want it to go somewhere where it will continue to get used and appreciated and, you know, things like that. And then they have the opportunity to sell it and kind of make things go around for them as well. But we've always, for the whole time, we've highlighted these partnerships. We've talked about the partners and the farms and the growers and the products. And we've used that to kind of separate ourselves from some of the other local businesses or other restaurants that aren't doing the same, that weren't going the same direction we were. And it was just really easy for us.

Like there's a ton of work that happens to get top of the line products or top quality, fresh ingredients. It's not easy. So we want to recognize and support. those people and recognize their work and then highlight that and let people know that hey this is where it's coming from and how it's going so one thing that seems like people come on in looks great this does look great all right what else are we looking at so we've been making our own house-made gluten-free cornbread for well over a decade so that's kind of one of our foundations if you will it's just a nice option. Again, we've got some, this is water buffalo fresco cheese, heirloom tomatoes, microgreens,

again, organic tomatoes and cucumbers coming from Dan's farm. And the cheese is also from Jason and Mount Lehman. But he does goat cheese as well as water buffalo cheese. That's kind of neat. How do you develop a dish? Can we choose one? Can we go through how you develop it in your mind? Yeah. Yeah, you know, for me, it always starts with the products. And we don't want to do a lot to them. There's nothing I'm going to do to that tomato at this point, short of store it properly and season it correctly and kind of put it on the plate. And that's it. Very simple. Let them speak for themselves. Let them shine. Jason's cheese, phenomenal, tart, smooth, tangy. It's a beautiful product doing a water buffalo coming out of the Langley area. Something that's

different yet completely familiar. Everybody knows a tomato Boconcini salad or capraise salad. So this is just a little bit of a different to take on it being with the water buffalo cheese, but it's still very simple, olive oil, sea salt, that's it. Do you sit down and try and develop these, or do you have like a palette that's able to kind of sift this out? I don't feel like I could ever put anything together like this or have the vision to put something like this together. Yeah, I guess, you know, it just, I don't want to say it just happens. We have a lot of creativity that we harbor and we grow and we drive in the restaurant. So we have certain things that are in print on our menu, and then we have certain things that are completely just,

I don't want to say made up, but that's a combination of what just came in, what do we have, what are we going to do, how are we going to do it? Let's come up with a plan, a program, let's come up with a pasta, let's come up with a sauce to go with that using this and this and this. So we will probably have three to six different features that get discussed, like verbal, verbally discussed at the table by service staff each night. And that is literally just something that we have, that we do. we have a product that we want to talk about.

We want a feature, if you will. So it's something that we always do. Interesting. On this note, I'm just thinking of how in grocery stores, we kind of get an artificial understanding of how things work. We think that everything's always in season because they're coming around the world and they're working to try and supply us with something,

even if it's not in-sive-it-in-to-deliver that to us, and you're very good at making sure you deliver things that are truly in season and you develop seasonal menus. What is that like? That is important to us. You never want to be bored at work, right? So inspiration from me is always ingredient-driven. Sometimes it can be something just as simple as the plate,

or that plate looks great. It would look even better. On it would be something like this. Like that's where I get a lot of my inspiration from. Then you just go back through all of your experiences and kind of make combinations that you know work and things like that. Yeah, it is great to go from season to season to season. And so after, you know, after a long kind of cold spring, you're just desperately looking forward to something cold and crisp and fresh, like lettuces, like tomatoes. And then when the first fruits come out, you know, your first blush of strawberries, a little later, little hotter, then you're into apricots, plums, stone fruits, and peaches. So you kind of, your expectation is coming, you know, I mean, it's like waiting for Christmas. You know Christmas only comes once a year. You only, you know, strawberries are only available for a three to five week window if we're lucky. Sometimes it's shorter if it's a cold, wet spring, or, you know,

You know, something like asparagus is only available for that three to four week window. So you kind of make the most of it when you can. So you kind of mark your calendar and your expectations grow. Like I can't wait for, you know, fresh blackberries. We love them. We want this. We want this. We know where we're going to get them.

We've already made arrangements. And when they're ready, we'll, you know, so there's that anticipation. So that's really great. And sometimes there's just some of these bonus surprises. One of our own team said, hey, listen, I've got 100 pounds of crab apples. So I'm like, we will take it and then we'll make something out of it. We'll make a chong or we'll like ferment them or we'll poach them off and can them. If you look around the restaurant, there's all types of examples of things that we're preserving.

And those will get used for a later date. Most of them are definitely not just for display. We'll take and make our pickles online or something that we're proud of that we have. We include them on our burger and things like that. I think of like the pumpkin spice latte as like a cultural like relic of like how we think about things. And then I remember that there's so many things about pumpkin squashes that help reconnect us. And when we talk about culture, food is a cornerstone of that, that it helps us reconnect and get and look forward to things and reconnect with our family.

And we have dinner and we have turkey dinners and stuff. What is that like to help? Civilization as a whole is built around food, right? Exactly. So what does it like to help give that to people, remind them of what the season is and what it brings and the beauty of it? I hope people get that sense. I hope people when they come in the dining room, they feel that they see that we're

we're doing that. I hope that they recognize some of the hard work that we do and some of the hard work that happens before we get our hands on the product. So, I mean, that's really important for us to share and let everyone know that our producers. They're all family hand-farmed products. Yeah, I love being known and hopefully thought of as a guaranteed great spot for dinner or great food or they know they're going to be able to enjoy something. I hope that their guests will kind of take a chance. You know, if you're a state guy, but maybe tonight's the night you're going to try duck well in our dining room like you're going to enjoy that like you're going to love duck because even if you've ever tried it it's not you know

it's you can be confident in your decision with dinner you know what i mean i i like that some of those bigger topics you know we don't really dwell on those because we're just so fascinated and and we all truly love our job so we're actually just busy with with that type of stuff um but yeah it is interesting uh it is fun to be thought of in that like because we have to i kind of to remove myself from my daily, my daily process. Like you saw me. Some days, I'm just lugging 600 pounds of vegetables around. Like, it's not glorious, but hey, it's got to get here. So when you kind of step back out and you think about that, some of those words and things like that is pretty neat to consider, yeah. The other one is new experiences. We get into our ruts. We get into

our regular chain food restaurants where we're not really connected with anything. But there's an opportunity here to make new memories with new foods like duck. When you're trying new foods like that rabbit. There's something about the new experience that's memorable and that connects the family and stores as something sacred. I'm just curious as to what it's like to develop things where it's off people's regular menus. It's not something they cook at home regularly. So you're giving them that new memory. Yeah. I mean, things, you know, simple ingredients, like simple to us ingredients, but are kind of daunting for a home cook. Sometimes are things like duck breast. sometimes, you know, products get a reputation, maybe they're fatty or chewy or, but, you know,

handling is critical of that. You know, you can definitely make that beautiful. And that's our goal. We always try to do that. Something so simple. Everyone knows bacon, but a lot of people don't really know pork belly. You know, same cut, less smoke. But here, that's been one of our kind of staple menu ingredients for a long time. And people swoon over it. Like, it is luxurious. It is something that, you know, you're not just going to go home and, you know, cure for four days of pork belly and then smoke for three hours and then slow braise for another three hours and then set, then portion, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, you're not going to take the four days it takes us to do, which is understandable. I don't often do it at home myself, but, you know,

sometimes I will. So that's kind of neat. That's something that we like, you know, that we take, and I did this really early on when I talked earlier about being kind of building confidence. Like I took something simple like pork tenderloin, but we just handled it a bit differently. We paired it with something a little bit differently. And people really, really enjoyed that, you know, but we had to start there. I'm coming from Yaletown where we're doing foie and, you know, duos of stuffed quail and different things, you know, like uni and, you know, pretty radical stuff for the Fraser Valley. But downtown Yale town, it was, you know, no holds bar. You can do whatever you want. Everyone let the down there loved it. But, you know, out here in the phrase

Valley, we had to start a little more conservative. And now, now I feel like we've got a pretty green light situation. Again, we've earned that confidence. I hope people have come and tried something for the first time and really enjoyed it. They've come back and they've tried something else for the first time so that, you know, they can get a little enjoyment too in different experience. Fascinating. There's so much that goes into a dish when you think about the smell, taste, flavor, how everything culminates together. What is your process to putting something together? have a mindset when you want like something drier mixed with something sweeter? Do you have a mindset in terms of presentation and how you approach things? Yeah, you always want to get the whole

palette involved, you know, hot sour, salty sweet, even touch of umami if you can. Um, you kind of want to engage all of those senses. And then you want to have all of the feels. You want something soft, smooth, crunchy. Uh, you know, it doesn't always happen on every dish, but sometimes, you know, we're definitely purposeful when we put something on. We're not going to, oh, this needs crunch. for no reason. Like, oh, let's put, you know, chips on it. Like, we don't often do that. Like, sometimes, oh, it is kind of nice to have that crunch because, because, because, but, you know, it's not, we're not dependent on it. Something's got to be crunchy. Something's got to be soft. It's generally kind of working within that form, that parameter, like if we're going to talk about

something like our pork belly dish, I like to layer things. So I'd like to do a roasted cauliflower and then do a cauliflower puree. So you get a hot kind of crispy, dark and caramelized, cauliflower, but then like a smooth, subtle, just two-ingredient cauliflower cream, maybe salt puree. Very simple. So you get like three layers or two layers of cauliflower working with the pork, you know, and then you can add something, something sticky and sweet if we did something like a sherry vinaigrette kind of reduced with bacon and made like a sherry bacon jam over top. So now you've got a little spark of acid to kind of work through, obviously pork belly is a little bit rich, even fatty, juicy, smooth, the creaminess of that cauliflower puree

you know, something, something sparkly like that bacon jam. You know, you're adding another layer of pork on top of pork, but now it's completely different. It has tart, acidity, a little, you know, a little bit of extra heat to it. You know, you can kind of control it that way. So that would be something how we would talk about a dish. That's been something that we've done before. Fascinating. You were making me so hungry. I want to ask about the team. You've built up team members here who've been here for a long period of time. We're committed to the vision, who see what you're trying to do. What is that like to build a community here as well? Yeah, that is super important.

Like, you can't underestimate the quality of you. You're only as good as the people around you. That's forever and will always hold true. We're not a big team. I think we've got about 22 employees. I think one of the biggest assets that we have is both myself and my partner, who's also the chef Matthew, we're in the restaurant five, six days a week, 10, 12 hours a day.

We're here with our team. We're supporting them. we're providing an environment where they're comfortable to work and they're comfortable to grow, they're comfortable to make mistakes, they're comfortable to ask questions, they're comfortable learning. You know what I mean? I consider ourselves like a learning kitchen. We'll take a young cook and we'll try and hold on them as long as we can and we'll steer them in our direction to try and get them on the same page with us with the style of food preparation. Same goes for a service team. It's invaluable having some

somebody who wants to be in your work environment that you're providing. You can't replace that. I know there's always money. Everybody likes to make money when they work, but there's other, there's a lot more to it, obviously, right? A paycheck doesn't make you happy. Going to work and doing a good job, meeting great people, taking care of people, feeling that sense of, again,

community is such a great word. Coming in and just having the first 20 minutes to have a cup of coffee, we always get caught up. A lot of my team have families. we're always asking about their kids what's happening how you know what's going on at school or or you know in the summer what the plans are retention is everything for us and then the ability of having those those staff coming in and getting to know our guests is also that's that's so huge for us for you know for some of our clients who are by no means particular but they do enjoy something simple as like

they don't like ice in the water but our team knows that so you know they don't have to the guest doesn't have to ask or feel like they're being a pain because they don't they just don't like ice in the water And I get it, neither do I. So, you know, we try to grow to our guests' expectations. And you can't just breeze in, work for three weeks and then, you know, breeze out or something like this. I've got service team that've been here for 12, 14 years. They know as many, if not more of the guests than I do. And they're particular, you know, they're aware and they try to cater and try to make their experience as pleasurable as possible just by getting to know them, just by learning a little bit about them, just by knowing. what table they like to sit at, little things like that. Beautiful. How does wine drinks mix with flavor? I'm just curious as to how you think about putting something together. You have an amazing list of different alcoholic beverages.

How does that pair for you? Yeah, that's another big part of the restaurant, big part of the dining room. It's definitely a full experience. We feel when you have like three or four courses and three or four different wines kind of paired to each course drastically can improve. the feeling and the taste and the way a dish works for you. That's pretty great, you know. And some people, some people really love having that experience,

going to different wines, going to different regions, trying different tastes to match specifically two ingredients that they're going to be having. Yeah, but we're kind of like a no-pressure dining room. Like we've got bottles of wine that are, say, $40. We've got bottles of wine that are, you know, 400. We don't really care which one you have. We'd prefer to steer you in the best possible direction. A lot of people have questions about what wine, you know,

oh, we're going to have, you know, want to buy a bottle of wine for the table, what would make the most sense. So our team's going to steer you in the best decision. Like, it doesn't matter. We never upsell. We never try to make a sale. I don't want to sell you $100 bottle if this, you know, $60 is the better fit, if that makes sense, right?

So we're pretty aware of that. We like to make sure that it's the best fit. And cocktails, again, we feature local ingredients in season. So we've had a strawberry rhubarb margarita that's just kind of moved off now. And I think we're back into raspberries and stuff like that. So, you know, because it's late summer. So we will buy 30 or 40 pounds. We'll make a syrup.

We'll make a puree. We'll add that to a couple of cocktails and we'll kind of rotate. Soon we'll be crab apples like we talked about. Apricots and peaches will be in. So it's fun. It's fun. What can people expect when they're heading in for the first time? What is your kind of philosophy as somebody coming in for the first time?

Oh, just be comfortable, just sit back, relax, you know, it's, uh, sometimes, you know, sometimes, you know, sometimes, uh, I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but sometimes we'll make a mistake at a table. Like, it's, it's done wrong. Like, it's a mistake. But we're trying to, we'll just try to be calm. Just like, hey, you know what? I don't want to, I don't want to minimize it or anything. We'd love to fix a mistake, but sometimes you just got to keep it in check like it's just dinner, you know? Um, so there's that. Um, so there's that. Um, um, so there's that. kind of thought process just to just to kind of keep people at ease but I think we'd love we'd love people to walk in see how bright and cheery the dining room is have a look at the visual display that we have at the bar all the things that we have when you walk in you're staring right at the open kitchen it's often very busy so it's you know there's no secrets we're an open kitchen open bar come in settle in settle in relax enjoy your evening that that'd be something that we'd love first-timers to feel. I think a great restaurant doesn't necessarily have to be everything to everyone all the time, but we can be a lot of things to a lot of people. We can be that nine-course

tasting menu anniversary. We can be a really great ribeye and a glass of beer before the absurd hockey game, things like that. So, I mean, we're pretty versatile. Yeah, I like to think that we're open and accepting kind of dining room, not very stuffy, but that's what we're going to go for. We're heading into fall. What is the top dish? What are you excited to serve to customers? Yeah, I love squashes. I love butternut squash.

I love Cabotia squashes. I love the richness. But how hard they are when you get them, but then after a little bit of time, how smooth you can make and how rich that flavor is. Collyflour is one of our favorites. Romanesco is really great. Yeah, I think it's, you know,

light and crispy, crunchy, acidic, tart, airy, like these kind of summer dishes are so great, but sometimes you just want to tuck into something that's deep and rich and roasted, fall off the bone. I can't help but think about Osabuco or lamb shank or short rib or something along those lines. Like that's not like that's a big comfort rabbit leg, duck leg confi, those slow, long cook, but such rich, full flavor preparations, yeah. I grew up on a very limited income. We did not have a lot of food growing up. It was craft dinner. It was hot dogs. It was not anything to this degree. And you've given me a lot of admiration. for the work that goes into it, for the connection you can have with your food and the depth

of community that exists in one dish. When you get to taste it, you know how many people were involved in bringing that to you. And I think that that's so beautiful. Do you have any advice for individuals who are interested in starting to take these steps and get interested in where their food comes from? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think, I think monetarily, it makes so much more sense to buy ingredients and products than prepared food. I think we're losing a lot of cooking skills, home economics, canning, jarring, preserving, just cooking at home. I find, you know, a lot of these delivery and all the apps where it makes it so easy, but they're expensive. I think that if people would engage farmers, find great local produce, it isn't that.

expensive. The yield is greater. The return is greater. The flavors are better. The health aspects are greater. Enjoyment is better. I think that I think we need to carve out more time cooking at home and dining at home and eating at home. And again, shopping local is a great part of that. I just think there's so much opportunity to have good food at home without having a frozen burrito instead of something that could easily, you know, it can easily be done. It just takes a little foundation, a few skills, a little bit of understanding, and a small repertoire of your favorites, you know, if everyone should be able to know how to shake a great vinaigrette to put over a simple lettuce and really enjoy that.

Little things like that. I think that would be, that would be good improvement. Final question for you. It's just around pricing. As you've mentioned, people view that as a barrier to experiences like this. what do you say to individuals who are like, oh, it's more expensive. It seems like there's so much work that goes on behind the scenes. What do you say to those individuals?

Yeah, it is definitely lately it's a challenge. You know, the cost of living on everything is going up. You know, I just am really confident and we're really proud of the amount of effort that we put into the quality of products that we bring in. You know, there's definitely a cost involved with that. But I think, you know, if you took a look around in the marketplace, I think that we're actually right on par with most every other location if you were kind of comparing apples to apples with the dishes. So yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate that things have to be up where they are right now. We're hoping to, you know, have some ease in the future. But right now we've got to make things go around.

And it seems like there's so much benefit behind the scenes. People don't see the amount of work that's going on at different farms to deliver amazing. high-quality food that you wouldn't be able to get anywhere else. Yeah, it is funny if you kind of take a dish and you break it down line by line, you know, kind of what is left at the very very end, you know, as part of our business model. It's not a great deal. We've got to sell a lot of dishes. But still, it's committed.

It is what we are. It's who we are and what we do. I can't really make too many changes beyond that. Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. I'm so excited to dive into these dishes. Thank you so much for setting this up and sharing your time. Thanks for coming in.