Revitalization Work. With conscious growth. In a bank vault. Welcome to Episode 94 and my conversation with Chef Joy Crump of FoodE and Mercantile in Fredericksburg. I was immediately taken with Joy when I met her during the Fire, Flour, Fork Women in Food panel where her thoughtfulness on the topic of running a kitchen stayed with me for hours afterward. http://edacious.co/094
We had this conversation inside FoodE, a converted bank building. In the vault of all places, which has excellent acoustics! Joy and her business partners were very conscious about keeping the original bones intact, using what was in place, rather than gutting everything and starting from scratch, hiring craftsmen to painstakingly restore every part and piece. Was there pushback from the community when she decided to renovate? How did her knowledgeable partner make the renovation process easier because of his background? How was this overhaul financed? If you're a woman, and even if you're not, Joy's story will CURL YOU HAIR. Make you angry. Galvanize you to take action on this International Women's Day. I'm still doing a facepalm.
When Joy first started FoodE, all she knew was that she wanted to cook good food. The concept developed over time and only after the third restaurant opened, a brewpub called Six Bears And A Goat which recently opened in Stafford. As she states, once you have a group of establishments it behooves you to have some sort of uniform concept. Like Edacious, the one word she and her partners Beth Black and Jeremy Harrison kept coming back to was community. Places where anyone is welcome. Where folks can drop by anytime.
To build that customer relationship, Joy and her partners listened closely to concerns, revamping the menu, adding dishes people requested, removing others, and shaping the space according to the customer's needs. This promotes loyalty and customers who choose to spend their dollar at FoodE and Mercantile regularly. Because as she states so well, you don't pay the bills simply by having a good graduation weekend or a ton of weddings.
We cover it all in this episode. Joy's energy and enthusiasm and thoughtfulness made me want to work with her on the regular. So well spoken. And her food? Phenomenal. Day trips to Fredericksburg are going to be a regular part of the rotation. I'll probably listen to this episode on the way there. Enjoy! Happy International Women's Day!
