VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: How a local restaurant is helping out nearby farmers
Visual: Sounds of Pots banging in a kitchen.
Chase Avery: In downtown Syracuse, a hidden gem called Eden is a fine dining restaurant that has won national awards, where owner Rich Strub emphasizes locally sourced ingredients.
Rich Strub: You know, we buy everything as locally as possible, so we’re just trying to cook with the seasons. I think more restaurants are doing that, and it’s important to have a sense of community and source ingredients from where you are. That’s important to me personally.
Avery: Jacob Newton from Hillside Farm in Truxton supplies the Eden with beef and chicken, and says the relationship between the two parties is a win-win.
Jacob Newton: Just having that viability of cash flow every month was huge for our business starting out and for growing on a larger scale. Also, it’s great marketing. We have people come to the market every week or every couple of weeks, mentioning their dining experience at Eden and how much they enjoyed it. We’ve also seen Hillside Farms advertised up on their chalkboard.
Avery: Though purchasing locally sourced ingredients increases menu prices for Strub, the quality of the food and giving back to the community is what matters most.
Strub: And we take a lot of pride in the things we produce here from local products. The price reflects that on the menu, but I think it’s really important to keep the money in the community as much as possible.
Avery: A mutual partnership that strengthens a community and produces delicious food. From NCC News, I’m Chase Avery.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — We all know that going to local restaurants helps local businesses, but how about a restaurant that helps other businesses by purchasing most of its produce through nearby farms. Rich Strub, a chef and owner of Eden in downtown Syracuse, does just that. Most of Eden’s food on the menu comes from ingredients from local farms around the Central New York area. Keeping money in the community and helping out one another is important to Strub.
“We buy everything locally as we possibly can, and we try to cook with the seasons. I think more restaurants are doing that, and it’s important to have that sense of community and buy everything based on where you are,” Strub said.
The Eden prides itself on being a very personalized restaurant and lets its customers know that they care about them as well. For regulars at the restaurant, Strub says that when some make a reservation, they already know what dish they want and how they want it prepared.
“We have great guests and we have quite a few regulars that come in pretty often. We know what they like. If we know that someone likes a certain steak cut, we will prepare that for them, so we try to accommodate people as much as possible,” said Strub.
Buying locally sourced produce and meat also encourages Strub to try to create the highest quality dishes possible not only for his guests but also for the farmers with whom he does business with.
“I’ve never had a farmer come in here (the Eden) and have a bad meal. We try to represent what they produce in the best possible light, you know; we try to buy locally and not screw it up,” said Strub.
Every dish with ingredients from a local farm is shown on the menu next to the food item’s name. This, as well as a chalkboard the Eden has, includes the names of the farms that the restaurant purchases from. This advertising not only helps customers decide what dish they may want, but also helps those local farms in advertising. Jacob Newton, a farmer from Hillside Farms in Truxton, supplies Eden with chicken and beef and says the mutual relationship between the two businesses is positive and is an example of how a business helps local farms.
“Starting off as a very small operation, they (The Eden) helped give us consistency. We give them one beef animal a month and we give them roughly 30-60 chickens per month. Having that viability of cash flow every month was huge for our business to grow to a larger scale. Collaborating with them is also great marketing, we have people come to the market and tell us about their time at the Eden and how they saw Hillside Farms on the chalkboard,” said Newton.
In addition to locally sourced food, the Eden offers a wide selection of liquor and wine. In 2021, the Eden won a wine spectator award, with all the wine coming from New York state. Most of its liquor selection is from New York state. All of the wine in the wine pours is from New York state wines.