Meet Joshua Kesler. He calls himself a “serial risk-taker.”
Ask him, though, if farm-to-table restaurants are a passing fancy, and he sees little risk at all. He firmly believes that sustainable dining is here to stay.
“Farm-to-table local sustainable is just starting,” says Kesler as workers put the final touches on The Millworks, his new restaurant in Midtown Harrisburg. “It’s not a fad. It’s not going to burn out. It’s only starting, and the awareness of what we eat, how it affects our soil, our communities, our economies, our bodies—I don’t think that’s something we’re going to get tired of as a culture.”
The Millworks, the region’s latest entry in sustainable dining, opens March 12. Kesler is the local developer who, with his wife Rachel, transformed the 1930s-era Stokes Millworks from a dilapidated shell into a stunning restaurant, with a beer garden, art studios and events space.
Kesler and architectural developer David McIlnay designed the space to link all those disparate features and add airy lightness to industrial chic. True to its sustainability mindset, the rebuild spotlights the array of stairs, windows and tables made—many by Millworks construction manager Dustin Malesich—from wood left behind when Stokes went out of business years ago.
“Design is everything,” says Kesler. “Design ties together concept and materials. Design is like the center point of everything, the hub of the wheel.”
And as for the meals served to diners, Kesler and others insist that sustainability is not a fleeting trend. Consumers are embracing better-quality food for life, they say. After all, says Kesler, central Pennsylvania is “the Tuscany of the East Coast.”
“That might sound dramatic, but it’s really not,” he says.
Within 30 Miles
Restaurants in New York, Philadelphia and Washington already source their milk, cheese, veggies and fruit from our region’s rich fields. Kesler has been building relationships with these local farmers through the Millworks Farmstand (formerly Harvest) at the Broad Street Market in Harrisburg.
About 90 percent of the food served at the Millworks comes from within 30 miles of the restaurant, “and the other is 50 to 70 miles at most,” says Kesler. Adhering to those boundaries requires Kesler and Executive Chef Nicholas Jones to be nimble.
“From an owner-chef level, you have to be very mindful and creative about how to bring that dish to the table at a reasonable price and meet customer expectations of quantity and value,” says Kesler.
You could say that Kesler and Jones are going whole hog into sustainable foods because entire animals are, quite literally, an element in sustainability. Here’s how it works. Traditional restaurants famous for, say, their pork chops or filet mignon require a steady, year-round supply for their menus. The fate of the rest of the hog or steer may be none of their concern.
By contrast, the Millworks is “loyal to the farm, not to the cut, buying whole animals and creatively crafting the menu to use as much of that animal as possible,” Kesler says. “It’s all local and sustainably grown, but it’s also sustainably used.”
Craving Authenticity
The Millworks’ approach “honors farmers,” assuring they aren’t stuck with unsellable cuts of meats, says Brooks Miller, who founded Perry County-based North Mountain Pastures with his wife, Anna Santini.
Some restaurants claim to serve local food, but their idea of local is “not from New Zealand,” says Miller. Farm-to-table assures “food that comes from people we know, and that’s the point of the whole thing.”
“As the last generation or two have gotten detached from their food supplies, people have gotten more interested in getting back in touch with it,” says Miller. “That’s sort of our job, to raise their meat with integrity.”
Still, farm-to-table requires a healthy dose of consumer education if it’s to rise from trend to fixture, says David Cranage, associate professor of hospitality marketing in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development, State College. Customers must “change their expectations” and accept things like oxtail soup or braised short ribs made from lower cuts of meat as the night’s special, he says.
Maybe “the jury’s still out” on the prospects of farm-to-table ventures, but the trend can succeed because people are disillusioned with agribusiness and such monstrosities as the taste-free tomato—picked green, gassed to turn red and served “hard as a hockey puck,” Cranage says. Teach diners to enjoy a salad with six kinds of leafy greens and flavorful carrots and beets, “then that’s a whole lot better than whether you have tomatoes in it or not.”
Local sourcing even offers advantages that can offset higher prices. Farmers selling entire animals can offer a price break, says Miller, while Cranage adds that producers who sell an entire crop to one restaurant exclusively are assured stability that keeps prices down.
Kesler is counting on authenticity-craving diners, including the Gen Y-ers who indulge in upscale casual dining more often than their Gen X and Baby Boomer elders. On the Millworks’ opening night, diners will recognize the menu’s Pennsylvania Dutch roots, blended with the culinary theme of New Rustic American. There may be wood-fired mac and cheese, chicken potpie, fried chicken and polenta, steak tartar and pizza-like wood-fired flats.
Kesler hopes to lead the farm-to-table trend toward a future of “consuming what we have available.” And, if the menu has tomatoes in March, rest assured they’re from the 700 fresh pounds canned by the Millworks, honoring “the old techniques that our great-great-grandparents used” for year-round enjoyment of central Pennsylvania’s abundance of seasonal foods.
“We could go to Tuscany, but why?” says Kesler. “We’re here.”
The Millworks is located at 340 Verbeke Street, Harrisburg. The restaurant’s opening is slated for March 12, which will coincide with the public opening of the building’s art studios. For more information, visit www.millworksharrisburg.com or call 717-695-4888.
