Aaron Adams, owner of modernist plant-based restaurant Farm Spirit announced today he will relocate the restaurant to a new, larger location around the corner in early 2019. He has agreed to lease space at 1403 SE Belmont Street, previously occupied by Roost restaurant. He will also return to the kitchen as executive chef when the new Farm Spirit opens.
Farm Spirit is currently located at 1414 SE Morrison Street and will remain open until the new space is ready. After the move, it will convert to “Fermenter,” an innovation kitchen and workshop to house the restaurant’s bread baking, fermentation, culturing, and dehydration projects. It will also serve as a pop-up space and private dining room for special events.
The move allows Adams to effectively double the size of his business, expanding what was a 14-seat chef’s counter to a 30-seat dining room with a 6-seat counter. Dinners will continue to be a set multi-course menu featuring vegetable cookery of the Cascadia region, purchased in advance through the TOCK ticketing service. The restaurant will also continue as gratuity-free.
“I’m really excited about the next phase of Farm Spirit as a table-service restaurant,” says Adams. “We’ll be able to engage with guests more personally and take our time answering questions about an ingredient or cooking technique. And, we can better accommodate the guests who want to dine with very little interruption – whatever their preference.”
In opening Farm Spirit in 2015, Adams set out to prove that vegan cuisine could be elevated to a fine dining experience and executed in a sustainable manner. To this day, 99 percent of the restaurant’s food is sourced from within 105 miles of the restaurant. Furniture, pottery, and hand-carved wooden spoons are brought in from local artisans. Each employee is paid a living wage, and full-time staff get health and dental benefits as well as paid leave. Adams is determined to keep the same blueprint for “phase 2” with the hopes bringing his food to more guests than ever.
“As much as I love seeing our dinners sell out, I don’t like running a wait list, especially when people come from far away or have waited a long time to try the restaurant,” Adams says. “About forty percent of Farm Spirit’s guests are from outside Oregon. My hope is that the new Farm Spirit will be a space where more people can enjoy all the bounty this great region has to offer.”
News and information presented in this release has not been corroborated by WTWH Media LLC.
