Soo I’ve had the idea of starting a small restaurant on a permaculture farm for a while. Every single ingredient would be grown right on the farm and customers would be able to see and walk around the farm if they want(with supervision, I guess in a short tour?), im thinking it should be a vegan restaurant, it just makes more sense to me. All the food would be organic/pesticide free/herbicide free, This would be the healthiest restaurant in my whole country for sure.
The restaurant wouldn’t be on the middle of the farm but it would be right in the middle of a nice botanical garden. The garden would make the place so much more pretty and attractive, plus this way people can sit down benches placed around the garden and eat while. In my country theres not many 3rd place , I could advertise the place as a free botanical garden with a restaurant on it.
The farm would be right besides the garden but it would be fenced so people dont touch the plants too much or steal them. So yeah these are 3 ideas together, botanical garden/restaurant/farm. I feel like I can advertise the botanical garden and the vegan restaurant separately so its less confusin.
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This sounds like a terrible idea. As a non vegan I am biased though. I won’t go to a vegan place in the first place for no other reason than if I’m out for dinner it’s because I’m hungry.
Then you have a botanical garden and a farm bolted on. Some will like that but it says expensive. Also botanical gardens or at least the ones I have been to are hot and humid. So you have hot and damp plus smelly (farm) then a food place.
You want to build an expensive hot smelly restaurant that caters to 3.1% of the population. That doesn’t include the vegans that have allergies or made up conditions to one up the other vegans.
If you are in the US, the idea is almost certainly fated to die on the vine due to forced compliance with federal food safety regulations that were written to apply to a completely different style of growing.
I’m not going to call it impossible if you have limitless energy and money, but IMO, that is the mountain you would have to climb.
Don’t ask people they will tell you it won’t work, I believe if YOU believe it will work it will! And I love the idea fr
This would definitely be best to run with a group of people. Maybe you can have some volunteers or wwoofers as staff for the farming aspect of things. If you don’t currently have a farm that would be the first hurdle. And planning the landscape to grow as much food as possible. I also think it would be difficult to grow EVERYTHING on site as it would be difficult to grow grain, beans, etc. having multiple streams of income is the best thing to do with farms as sometimes crops fall or years are rough for growing so some ideas: (let folks take pictures in your garden, do tours, classes, weddings, etc)
I highly doubt people will go there.
1% of the population are estimated to be Vegan. You need every seat filled, all the time, to make money. I totally can see the political vociferous Vegans willing to drive out to a farm, botanical garden, whatever. But the remainder of that little 1% prefers the city or suburb of the city where they generally live.
if I’ve learned anything from my many many years in the restaurant world is that vegan restaurants are cool, but eventually suffer because carnivores typically won’t go to them and the vast majority of consumers are carnivores or at least some take on it.
Blue Hill at Stone Barns has a similar concept. Hyper local, farm on site, etc etc.
Lots and lots and lots of education will be involved here. Not necessarily for you, but for a lot of your customers, who I’m sure have been educated to eat a very specific way over the last century or so.
The idea is cool - it could be executable - but I would do a legit market research in your area to see if I need for such a restaurant is warranted
All of these things are not atypical - but I’m curious what island you live on and wether or not enough people on that island would care. Also, if you’re on an island, maybe include fish at least. Plus chickens will help your farm.
As far as harvest, I would look into fermentation and preservation techniques (drying, smoking, fermenting, pickling) so you can utilize out of season produce all year long.
I think it’s a bad idea to rely soley on your own crop. If anything goes wrong you’re ruined.
I’ve seen plenty of quality restaurants who only source food from local farms though. Might be a better option
Sounds like an incredible amount of investment. We have something like that here. It’s only seasonal and it’s like $150-175 plate. Swank Specialty Produce.
Check out clarksons farm. He tried this I think. Very difficult.