[Guest post by Jason Stellman]
If you have been to Gilman Village in Issaquah lately, you may have noticed a new “Coming Soon” sign — the Well & Table, a farm-to-table restaurant with a focus on fresh, local ingredients from Washington’s farms, wineries, breweries, and distilleries, will be taking over one of the village’s prime locations very soon.
While the Well & Table is still several weeks away from opening our doors, we are doing our best to make the most of the delays we are facing. For this reason, we are excited to announce a partnership between us and the folks at Green Bow Farm.
Green Bow Farm is a small, family-run operation located in Ellensburg. They produce grass-finished beef and lamb, pasture pork, and pasture chicken and eggs. What’s more, Green Bow implements “regenerative farming,” a practice involving using the fertile ground as nature intended — no harmful chemicals in the soil, no hormones in the animals, and no destructive mono-cropping. Instead, the cattle, chicken, pigs, and sheep are regularly moved around the pasture to promote both the health of the soil and the animals’ health.
And here’s the really cool part….
Green Bow Farm provides produce directly to the public, and the Well & Table is now their Issaquah hub! This means that locals in this area can visit their website, make their selections, and pick up their goods at our restaurant in Gilman Village every week.
Our vision for the Well & Table is so much bigger than (1) Make Food; (2) Sell Food. We want to not only use but really feature local purveyors and the products they offer. We will offer local wines, of course, but we also want to host special dinners where the vintners themselves introduce us to their wines and walk us through the process of pairing those wines with our dishes. Our craft cocktails will also be made with local spirits, and we envision hosting special presentations where local distillers can educate us about their wares and share with us new cocktail ideas.
It’s the same with Green Bow Farm. While we will eventually be ordering their products for the restaurant, we believe so strongly in what they are doing that we want to help promote their vision in our area now, even before we open. In a word, by supporting Green Bow Farm, you are also supporting the Well & Table, and more importantly, you are supporting green farming and our local economy.
After all, why order a steak from a cow 1,500 miles away that has to be loaded onto a gas-guzzling semi when you can get a tastier (and more sustainably produced) one from down the street?
Jason and his partner, Jaynie Wetherbee, live in North Bend. Jason has lived in the Pacific Northwest since 2004, and Jaynie grew up in the Issaquah area and has been a part of the local culinary community for two decades.
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Orders for Green Bow’s products can be placed at www.greenbowfarm.com/ordering, and you can follow the Well & Table’s progress at www.thewellandtable.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. They are hoping to be open for business in late spring/early summer 2021.
