Pioneer Street Restaurant strives to locally source food, reduce waste

RIDGEFIELD — Jeff and Johanna Herron opened their new downtown Ridgefield cafe, Pioneer Street Cafe, on Friday in the room formerly occupied by Pioneer Road Cafe & Bakery, 207 Pioneer St. The new restaurant serves breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every working day apart from Monday. The menu transitions from breakfast to lunch at 11 a.m. When its license to provide beer and wine is granted, it will also serve evening meal featuring Italian classics, these types of as rooster Marsala and chicken Castellana, and steak.

The Herrons met even though Jeff labored as a chef and Johanna as a waitress at Vallata, an Italian good-eating restaurant in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2000. Immediately after they fulfilled, Jeff ongoing to go after his culinary profession and found out a passion for sourcing neighborhood components. Johanna worked as a waitress and bartender through school. Right after earning a Master of Science in local community nourishment from University of Alaska Fairbanks, she established farm-to-faculty courses and assisted little farmers increase their organizations so they could provide to eating places, retail and worldwide markets.

The couple moved from Fairbanks to Ridgefield with their young children in July 2020. When they acquired that the Pioneer Road Cafe & Bakery was for sale, it seemed like the fantastic prospect to go after Jeff’s aspiration of possessing his individual restaurant.

The Herrons will carry out two new plans that may well not be evident to diners.

They will generate a organization design that reduces squander.

“There are two needs to the squander-reduction system,” Johanna Herron explained. “First, it is good not to squander, and 2nd, it is tricky for places to eat to remain open due to the fact of expense. In the extended term, if you shift the way you assume about matters, you can help save.”

This shift in thinking starts off with portions intended to be a gratifying food to the clients when they dine at the cafe with no leftover food stuff to be thrown out or taken absent in plastic containers. This system will evolve as the entrepreneurs get a greater perception of what diners want. To assist reduce food stuff waste, Pioneer Street Restaurant delivers a construct-your-possess breakfast with a la carte sides, these as a fruit bowl ($4), two pancakes ($5) and home potatoes ($4) that enables prospects to customized design and style a meal that fits their urge for food.