Farm to Table: the Dark Side
The Farm to Table movement (chefs finding local farms and using their yummy cherry tomatoes) would seem to have no dark side. What could possibly go wrong? I will tell you, from personal experience -- I hope this is not the way it is for all farmers, but I have heard enough to know that this is not unique to us.
Restaurants do the same thing as other tenuous businesses, paying their bills as they can. But they can get into some really bad habits, and farmers seem to feel they have no choice but to let them get away with it. I am not sure I should name names here, as it might be considered slander or something, but there is a high end, fancy restaurant that opened last year in DC. We sort of inherited an account with them when we joined forces with another farmer. The chef had cultivated a relationship with Zach, and had indicated that if he could provide local vegetables all winter long, we would have a very good position with this restaurant -- they do banquets and special events. So Zach devoted himself to this effort, along with our small winter crew, and delivered hard-fought winter greens and radishes and other delicacies. The prices were steep, but the restaurant had a commitment to getting the best local vegetables it could find. In the winter it is really hard to get vegetables around here.
The trouble was the accounting department had nothing to do with the principles of supporting local farmers. We waited months for payment. I sent invoices, I sent notes. Occasionally we would get a check. It took about four months to get the last payment, after I sent a direct and strongly worded note. In fact, I got a call from the chef at 11:45 PM, saying he had no idea they were behind on their payments. Who calls at 11:45? He was undoubtedly hoping I wouldn't answer, but still. He was at work but I was in bed.
So I fired them. I have fired customers before, and never looked back. There is no way it feels good to subsidize a fancy restaurant, when we have already invested and spent all the money that it took to get those vegetables to their door, and those vegetables have been cooked and eaten months ago.
So, what can you do? If you feel like it, when you are at a restaurant that brags about its relationship with farmers, you could ask your server whether s/he can find out whether the farmer gets paid in a timely manner. Just ask. It can't hurt. You can still have your plate of microgreens and slivers of watermelon radish, and you can eat it with joy, but do let the restaurant know that you are anxious to know whether the farmers have been paid, or how long farmers have to wait for their money.
On the other end of the spectrum, to be fair, there is a high end restaurant that pays its bills the moment the vegetables arrive at the door. Chez Francois in Great Falls holds itself to an extremely high standard in every possible way. We don't sell to them anymore because we no longer wholesale, but for many years we brought boxes of our tomatoes to the kitchen door. They had to be ripe, they had to be perfect, they had to be a certain size. And they were purchased for their flavor, which is what we do best. The kitchen manager came out and took the lids off the boxes to make sure they were what they expected (we never got turned away). But we have seen Mr. Francois himself come out to meet a delivery of fish, open the box and literally THROW a fish across the parking lot. You have to be very brave to deliver to Chez Francois. They always made us wait while they went inside and got a check. They had no debts.
Chez Francois is such a classy and principled place that when they had a big fire that destroyed their kitchen and beyond, they continued to pay their employees until they were open again. I bet they are very hard to work for (I have seen and heard the managers managing), but they have a deep understanding of what it takes to run a good business. They are hard on everyone and they are fair.
Compared to the huge issues that confront us all (climate change being the hugest of all, I am reminded often by my very sobered children), this is a small matter. But it is an example of how people run their businesses, and what they get away with. I don't put up with that. They can have cardboard tomatoes from California, they don't deserve ours.
Restaurants do the same thing as other tenuous businesses, paying their bills as they can. But they can get into some really bad habits, and farmers seem to feel they have no choice but to let them get away with it. I am not sure I should name names here, as it might be considered slander or something, but there is a high end, fancy restaurant that opened last year in DC. We sort of inherited an account with them when we joined forces with another farmer. The chef had cultivated a relationship with Zach, and had indicated that if he could provide local vegetables all winter long, we would have a very good position with this restaurant -- they do banquets and special events. So Zach devoted himself to this effort, along with our small winter crew, and delivered hard-fought winter greens and radishes and other delicacies. The prices were steep, but the restaurant had a commitment to getting the best local vegetables it could find. In the winter it is really hard to get vegetables around here.
The trouble was the accounting department had nothing to do with the principles of supporting local farmers. We waited months for payment. I sent invoices, I sent notes. Occasionally we would get a check. It took about four months to get the last payment, after I sent a direct and strongly worded note. In fact, I got a call from the chef at 11:45 PM, saying he had no idea they were behind on their payments. Who calls at 11:45? He was undoubtedly hoping I wouldn't answer, but still. He was at work but I was in bed.
So I fired them. I have fired customers before, and never looked back. There is no way it feels good to subsidize a fancy restaurant, when we have already invested and spent all the money that it took to get those vegetables to their door, and those vegetables have been cooked and eaten months ago.
So, what can you do? If you feel like it, when you are at a restaurant that brags about its relationship with farmers, you could ask your server whether s/he can find out whether the farmer gets paid in a timely manner. Just ask. It can't hurt. You can still have your plate of microgreens and slivers of watermelon radish, and you can eat it with joy, but do let the restaurant know that you are anxious to know whether the farmers have been paid, or how long farmers have to wait for their money.
On the other end of the spectrum, to be fair, there is a high end restaurant that pays its bills the moment the vegetables arrive at the door. Chez Francois in Great Falls holds itself to an extremely high standard in every possible way. We don't sell to them anymore because we no longer wholesale, but for many years we brought boxes of our tomatoes to the kitchen door. They had to be ripe, they had to be perfect, they had to be a certain size. And they were purchased for their flavor, which is what we do best. The kitchen manager came out and took the lids off the boxes to make sure they were what they expected (we never got turned away). But we have seen Mr. Francois himself come out to meet a delivery of fish, open the box and literally THROW a fish across the parking lot. You have to be very brave to deliver to Chez Francois. They always made us wait while they went inside and got a check. They had no debts.
Chez Francois is such a classy and principled place that when they had a big fire that destroyed their kitchen and beyond, they continued to pay their employees until they were open again. I bet they are very hard to work for (I have seen and heard the managers managing), but they have a deep understanding of what it takes to run a good business. They are hard on everyone and they are fair.
Compared to the huge issues that confront us all (climate change being the hugest of all, I am reminded often by my very sobered children), this is a small matter. But it is an example of how people run their businesses, and what they get away with. I don't put up with that. They can have cardboard tomatoes from California, they don't deserve ours.
At first I thought your dark side was going to be the restaurants that advertise the local farms prominently in their restaurants and on their menus, but actually buy only a token amount from those farms.
ReplyDeleteYes, I forgot about that. There are restaurants that leave a farm name on their menu for YEARS after the relationship has ended. And there are those that list every single farm that ever sold them a bunch of herbs. More dark sides that I had long ago forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThis piece is reminding me of a dinner you and I had at Nora's in DC a million years ago. I hadn't eaten at that many fancy restaurants prior to that (though do recall my first taste of pesto on delicious bluefish at a lovely dinner Sarah Newcomb hosted in the South End--YUM. Now I even remember the name, St Botolph Restaurant!). It was cool to eat at Nora's because PVF sold vegetables to them. It was delicious and special and fun. I think they treated us well!
ReplyDelete