Shelly Rosnik didn’t have anywhere to eat. So she opened a restaurant.
For Rosnik, a longtime vegan, dining out often meant her menu options were limited to French fries. She envisioned a place where meat-eaters, vegetarians, gluten-free diners and people with other nutritional needs could sit down and eat together.
Her vision just became reality.
On April 15, The Gnarly Root opened its doors, providing Rosnik the space she needed to bring the same carefully-selected foods she eats at home to the public. Just as in her own kitchen, anything she dishes up at the restaurant needs to be fresh, local and sustainable.
And she’s not alone. As the farm-to-table, non-GMO and organic trends have become popular throughout the United States, local eateries have been at the forefront of bringing natural ingredients and healthy food to the people of Parker.
“It’s all local and organic — they have to have farming practices that are environmentally sustainable," Rosnik said of her suppliers. "They’re not draining the resources out of the soil.”
The farms she buys from — in Kiowa, Simla, Elizabeth, Gunnison, Eagle and other places around the state — use bats instead of chemicals to control insects and employ conservation techniques to preserve water and soil.
Rosnik's suppliers take the same approach to meat and fish as they do to vegetables. Cattle and bison are fed organic grass and are processed separately, keeping the meat from being tainted with adrenaline. Fish are sourced from an Alamosa fish farm that gives fish space to swim.
“They have to raise their animals humanely from birth to processing,” Rosnik said. “They're happy cows, happy bison… Even at processing, their happy days just end. They're not shipped off to some feed lot and put into that fear and that distress. They're processed apart from the other animals, so they never see it coming and the other animals aren't fearful.”
Demand increasing for natural alternatives
According to Rosnik, awareness of the potential risks of eating genetically modified produce and feed lot meats is driving consumers to explore more natural options, and leading them to her dining room.
“Eating healthy and people wanting to have colorful food on their plates… there's a lot more need, and room, for it,” she said. “We are busy every single day.”
Neil Fischer is seeing an uptick in business, too. He supplies grass-fed, humanely raised meat from his farms to local restaurants like the Parker Garage. He said the demand for his product increases between 16 and 18 percent each year as consumers seek out natural alternatives to factory farms.
“We're willing to do what it takes to set up something that's really authentic,” Fischer said.
In addition to supplying restaurants with high-quality food, Fischer works with other farmers to create food cooperatives around the state. “We're working with farms in Salida and Gunnison to bring the food-to-table experience to local communities like Parker.”
Fischer can be found downtown Sunday mornings, talking with Brent Walker, owner of the Parker Garage. The restaurant uses meat from Fischer's farms in its menu, and each Sunday it opens its rolling doors to host The Farm2Table Trading Post, a venue for Fischer and other local farmers to come together with consumers.
Walker gets pork bellies, beef and bison from Fischer, but he said he has always explored ways to obtain the freshest products on the menu. The chef, Duy Pham, even raised chickens and quail for the Garage on a farm in Elizabeth until demand and incapacitating snowstorms forced him to use other local farmers.
'A community around food'
Walker wants to take the concept beyond the restaurant's doors and into customers' homes. He would like to set up tasting booths during the markets to allow consumers to try nuts, jams, meats and vegetables and order them directly from local suppliers. Walker said he views his menu as a way to “develop a food supply chain” in which customers will try an entrée at his restaurant and, if they like it, order the food directly from Fischer thereafter.
“We're creating a community around food,” Walker said.
The outdoor farmers' market in Parker is where Rich Esper, owner and head chef at Elevation, does a lot of his shopping. Esper estimated he buys between 70 and 75 percent of his produce from the market between May and October. He creates specials on the menu that only last a few days to accommodate the short shelf life of vegetables grown without preservative modifications.
But the term “organic” doesn't just apply to Esper's food.
“Where we really focus our approach to sustainability and organics is our wine,” Esper said. “Ninety-five percent of our wines are Old World wines which come from Spain, Italy or France, and they've been doing organic practices and non-GMO practices for hundreds of years, not because it was the `in' thing to do — it wasn't a trend — it's just how they always had done it.”
The winemakers he buys from don't use insecticides or modify their soil simply because they've never had to, Esper said. He noted that many people who complain of headaches from drinking wine have a different reaction when they try an organic wine without artificially-added sulfites. His suppliers, he said, sacrifice profit for pride, and for the product.
“Would they get more yield if they introduced pesticides and herbicides?" Esper said. "Probably, but it's not even a consideration because they know that something you do today affects what comes out of the ground tomorrow.”
The ground is the starting point for organic, healthy ingredients. For the produce used at the Gnarly Root, it's also where they return. Rosnik takes vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and biodegradable leftovers from the kitchen to her home where she uses them as compost.
Like Walker and Esper, Rosnik said she is always trying to look for the latest techniques to bring healthy, tasty food to her customers while supporting innovative, organic and sustainable farming practices.
“If it's there and we learn about it,” she said, “we're going to try and make that happen.”
