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March 27, 2008

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THE CLOSEST FARM is miles away. But for patrons of Applewood restaurant in Brooklyn, N.Y., it might as well be in the backyard.

With an oversized brick fireplace in the dining room and black-and-white photos of local farmers adorning the butter-yellow walls, the décor alone embodies a rustic, turn-of-the-century farmhouse. Add in dishes such as house-made charcuterie, pan-roasted Vermont pork and chocolate potato cake and anyone would be hard-pressed to remember that bustling New York City is outside instead.

However, this bucolic bistro's co-owners, Laura and David Shea, would say that each day's menu with its ever-changing array of farm-fresh veggies and hormone- and antibiotic-free meats are the real organic bird feathers in Applewood's cap.

"Chefs probably get too much credit," says David, who is Applewood's chef. "At the end of the day, it's really all about what we get to work with."

Dinner's Ready

Your name: David and Laura Shea (pictured)
Name of business: Applewood
Year founded: 2004
Business type (industry): Restaurant
Location: Park Slope, Brooklyn
No. of employees: 14
Web address: www.applewoodny.com

The couple in 2007 opened a retail kitchen shop, Applewares, in the same neighborhood with two employees.

Where do you look for business advice? (Mentors? Industry or trade groups? Family and friends?)
We generally make all business-y decisions based on advice from each other and from bouncing ideas off our current staff. We've had the good fortune to maintain a number of employees for a relatively long time and value their opinions, as they are the ones most closely dealing with our customers.

What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
We'll have to get back to you on this one…

What's the smartest move you've made so far?
Never compromising our values. We agreed at the beginning that if we ever found ourselves thinking about cutting quality (whether it be the food, the linens, etc.) in order to make more money, we would just close the business instead. We've stuck to our guns and only offer a product and experience that we know in our hearts is the absolute best we can provide to our guests.

What's the best business book you've read so far?
"The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss

In brief, how did you fund the business initially?
We had friends and an outside investor who provided the initial funding. We were able to separate ourselves from that relationship within the first year and now we own it ourselves.

And extra credit, please answer: When/where was your last vacation?
We were very lucky to have a fun and relaxing week in the Bahamas with our kids over their midwinter break in February.

The reverence for farm-fresh victuals combined with David's ability to mix up delectable recipes with whatever ingredients are available that day has been delighting area residents since Applewood opened its doors in 2004. A recent review in the Zagat Survey, an influential restaurant guide, calls the restaurant "unpretentious" with an "excellent menu" and "cozy and warm" dining room. The eatery has even attracted food snobs from nearby Manhattan, not to mention customers from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont.

Cultivating such a following is no easy task, especially in a city whose denizens may delight in delicacies from regions as far flung as Eastern Europe and Tibet. In Park Slope alone, the neighborhood in Brooklyn where Applewood is located, 17 other restaurants serve "American" cuisine, according Zagat's.

The secret sauce?

At Applewood's core, Laura Shea, who manages the day-to-day restaurant activities, says "we just don't believe in eating (or serving) food that is commercially produced." Not only is eating unadulterated food better for you, she says, it tastes better, too. Plus, she says, purchasing from local farmers cuts down on environmental waste, as it generally takes less fuel to transport products when they're only a three-hour drive away. Even as the Sheas spurn such trendy labels as "locavore," which refers to the idea of eating locally grown or produced food, Laura says that by remaining dedicated to local farmers "we are impacting the world as little as possible, and as a result we're getting the best products."

Laura adds that it helps to set up shop in a location that's receptive. "We are very fortunate that we opened this restaurant where we did," she says. While Applewood may be off-the-beaten-track on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn, "the people who live here are hungry for what we're doing," she says. "They're socially aware and environmentally conscious people who like a lot of pork."

And they should know. The Sheas, who married in 1998 after meeting at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, moved to the hood (a block away from the restaurant) shortly before starting up Applewood. Before that, they spent about five years in the Chicago restaurant scene. And before that, both had worked in the food industry since they were teenagers. The now-38-year-olds say they've learned a lot, mostly by witnessing others' mistakes. "We have both had the fortune to work for people who didn't know what they were doing," says Laura.

In addition, the Sheas also spent time at places that inspired them. For instance, the whole idea for Applewood sprouted when the couple worked on a restaurant/farm together. "We have both had the experience going out to the garden in the morning and pulling out the arugula still warm from the sun and using it in dishes that evening," she says.

With the notion of serving up fresh ingredients in mind, the Sheas came to New York to go it alone. After tapping some friends and an outside investor to fund their idea, the duo raised $225,000. To make those dollars last, Laura says, they did all the work themselves and installed an entirely used kitchen. As for deciding who takes on the kitchen, Laura says that part was easy. "I was always much more comfortable in the front of the house." And Dave, she says, "was always the better chef."

Over the past four years, the Sheas have learned that having a mission to only serve locally grown produce — even in the dead of winter — presents its own brand of unique challenges. For example, says David, "not much grows in New York in February." In addition to dealing with scarce menu items, the cost of purchasing organic and locally grown food is steep. Mix in trying to raise a three- and seven-year-old and the Sheas certainly have their work cut out for them.

However, while the price of buying better-quality supplies is higher, Applewood's reliance on both local and organic produce, to some degree, makes good business sense. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, consumer demand for organic food has surged since the 1990s. In 2005, for example, all 50 states in the U.S. had some certified organic farmland. The USDA adds that, in 2005, U.S. producers dedicated over four million acres of farmland — 1.7 million acres of cropland and 2.3 million acres of rangeland and pasture — to the production of organic products.

Such a push has helped out the Sheas' bottom line, too. The restaurant, which has been profitable for the past two years, now supports the couple's other entrepreneurial venture, Applewares, a kitchen supply store they opened last year around the corner. The reason for opening a kitchen supply store rather than another restaurant, says David, had a lot to do with the fact that restaurants are hard work. "It would have been very difficult to own another restaurant and put the same amount of care into it as it would deserve," he says.

Photos by Michael Harlan Turkell.

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Write to Diana Ransom at dransom@smartmoney.com.