Imagine a restaurant dedicated to local food and supporting as many local people as possible. Imagine such a restaurant that rejects pretension and doesn’t need to add three adjectives to every ingredient of every dish. Imagine such a restaurant where the entrees hover around $15.
Heaven?
Apparently not if you live in Meadowview in southwestern Virginia. That’s where Steven Hopp is trying to run such a restaurant: Harvest Table. Yet the locals — the very people he is working to benefit — would rather eat at Pizza Hut. Even the farmers are not enthusiastic because they’d apparently rather grow tobacco or monoculture crops for large buyers.
I find the model inspiring. There is a commitment to the local economy and celebrating what the nearby land can produce. They even source all of their wine from Virginia. Hopp told the New York Times that he wants the business to benefit as many local people as possible. And this is no charity — though the restaurant has not yet turned a profit yet the plan is to do so. The service is apparently wonderful. I want a restaurant like this in my neighborhood and am lucky that Boston offers several (though all at higher price points).
What is so depressing is that the local community chooses mass produced, mediocre fare — food that offers fewer nutritional benefits (I’ll leave taste to the palette of the beholder though I know I’d be happier at Hopp’s Harvest Table – Pizza Hut doesn’t even make vey good pizza) served by establishments that will contribute a lower percentage of their profits to the local economy: chains typically do as most profits go back to headquarters. Perhaps the local population are in a sugar-MSG induced coma. Perhaps they are relatives of the folks in West Virginia who fought so hard against Jamie Oliver when he tried to introduce healthier food to their schools. Perhaps they need to wake up and smell the kale.
Let me simply say that I am profoundly grateful to have multiple farmers’ markets that I can visit and many restaurants that support local food producers. And to Mr. Hopp, keep the faith.
