Farm-to-table restaurant Farmer Girl to open in Lyons

LYONS — A chef and entrepreneur who runs a food truck and a space at a Denver collective will open a restaurant in Lyons next month specializing in locally sourced farm-to-table fare.

Tim Payne, who ran the Terroir restaurant on Main Street in Longmont for five years and whose food truck is a familiar sight at the Boulder County Farmers Market, plans to open Farmer Girl on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 432 Main St. in Lyons. The 2,500-square-foot space, leased through Squire Realty, had been Gateway Café for many years, then Sushi Matsuri and — after the September 2013 flood devastated much of the town — Local Eat+Drink, which closed in November.

Farmer Girl will have 36 to 40 seats in the dining room, plus a bar space that will seat around 16. “We plan on partnering with the landlord to put a garage door in the front of the building so it can be opened up in nice weather and bring the outside in,” he said.

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The new restaurant will give Payne what might be termed a full plate — what with the food truck formerly called The Tasterie and his stall at Avanti, a two-level “food hall” at 3200 Pecos St. in Denver’s LoHi neighborhood where Payne owns one of seven small kitchens, each about the size of a food truck. But he’s not worried about being over-extended.

“I’m committed to Avanti for the near future, but I have spent a great deal of time building a staff there so I don’t have to be there,” he said. “I’ll be utilizing my staff at the restaurant in Lyons to help run the food truck in the summer — using the restaurant kitchen to supply it.”

Payne renamed the Tasterie food truck Farmer Girl about a month ago “so I’d have one brand,” he said. The name is “an ode to female farmers. Many of the local farms are led by strong women; they’re really the unsung heroes of the local food scene.”

Some diners have avoided farm-to-table restaurants because they tend to be pricey. The use of a food truck has kept those prices down, but Payne said “the idea of the new restaurant is still to maintain some semblance of affordability. That’s part of the integration of different dining experiences. It should be no more expensive than typical restaurants, so people aren’t paying extra to get locally sourced food.”

He expects entrees to range from $15 to $20. “I’ll focus on local produce, which is going to help keep the price down,” he said. “The intent is to satisfy what I call a ‘flex-a-tarian’ audience — those that have different dietary needs. Everybody is going to be able to order what they want, whether they’re avoiding gluten or dairy or have food allergies. Our menu will be highly adaptable for those situations.”

Even though Farmer Girl is opening in winter, Payne said much of its food still will be locally sourced.

“I am able to get local greens during winter, and chicken eggs,” he said. “And then I can source organically for the rest through Growers Organic. Most of their food comes from California and northern Mexico, so I’m able to fill that need while we’re waiting for the dormant land to open up. Local produce really doesn’t start kicking in heavy until May, and if everything goes well you can locally source into November.

“One hundred percent of our food comes from local farms in summer, and maybe 15 to 20 percent in winter. I can get potatoes, garlic, squash, winter greens, root vegetables the farmers have put up in root cellars. If it’s not organic, I try to get something that I know is sustainable and locally raised.”

Payne, who received classical training from Le Cordon Bleu in Scottsdale, Ariz., has overseen several kitchens, including Z Cuisine and the Row 14 Bistro and Wine Bar in Denver, as well as five years at Terroir. When his lease ran out there in summer 2012 in the 246 Main St. space now home to Antonio’s: A Taste of Mexico, Payne didn’t want to spend the large sum needed to outfit a new kitchen in a new spot.

But three years later appeared the opportunity in Lyons.

“I’m really happy to have stumbled across the space,” Payne said. “This space and the kitchen are already built out, the liquor license was transferrable and it’s already been approved by the health department. So the investment needed to open is minimal for a restaurant.

“It’s logistically close to my old clientele and the farms I use, so it’s a match made in heaven.”