Red Brick Grill

The Story

In January of 2005, Frank saw an ad in the New York Times for a chef/owner to start an upscale restaurant in an historic train depot in central Vermont. We had recently begun looking for a space to create our own business, so we responded to the ad.

On a bitterly cold Sunday that January, we drove up from Westchester, NY to Poultney, VT to see the depot and meet the landlord and members of the Poultney Downtown Revitalization Committee. Finding the space to have charm and tremendous potential, we decided to take the opportunity to pursue the project. We relocated to Vermont in May 2005 and began extensive renovation of the building, including the installation of our Italian wood-fired oven. RedBrick Grill opened at the end of that July.

The Partners

Wendy Jackson and Frank Rhodes have both enjoyed long and successful careers in the restaurant industry, though traveling different paths to this point.

Frank grew up in Pennsylvania working on small family dairy and vegetable farms. His family ate locally before that was a novel concept; they grew and preserved virtually all of the produce they consumed each year. As an English major at Franklin and Marshall College, Frank began working in restaurants, developing a passion for traditional, rural, old world cuisines and the culture of food. After leaving college, this passion evolved into a career path, and he moved to New York. He apprenticed in some of the city’s best restaurants, and at the age of 30, he was recruited by renowned food writer and restaurant consultant Barbara Kafka to open the acclaimed Gotham Bar & Grill, still one of NY’s top 10 Zagat restaurants. He has also cooked at The Box Tree, Aja, Rex, Wheatleigh in Stockbridge, MA, and Luna in Westport, CT. His work has been praised in the NY Times, NY Magazine, and NY Daily News. After many years working as executive chef in high-profile Manhattan restaurants, Frank wished to return to his country roots and opened Organica in Westport, Connecticut. It was there that he met Wendy and they began pursuing a joint venture.

After graduating from Colgate University in 1985, Wendy worked in the corporate world for several years. Eventually deciding to make a career change to the food service industry, she enrolled in the New England Culinary Institute’s two-year program. She spent the next ten years working in a variety of hospitality venues, from large hotels to rural restaurants, including the highly-acclaimed Inn at Little Washington in Virginia, the Hotel Nikko in Atlanta, and Le Patio in St. Barth’s. After a stint as the coordinator for a celebrity chef cooking school, where she worked with everyone from Emeril and Bobby Flay to Marcella Hazan, she met Frank when she was hired to be sous chef at Organica restaurant.

The Food

A major determining factor to locating our restaurant here was the unique access to sustainable, local, healthy, family farm products. It is still possible in Vermont, if one is willing to let go of conventional restaurant practices that rely almost exclusively on the agribusiness distribution model, to create a restaurant where virtually all the raw material, in season, is coming from a 50 mile radius. We meet every winter with Steve Chamberlain at Dutchess Farm in Castleton to plan what crops we want seeded for the following spring through fall. We speak to Vermont Quality Meats Coop, representing local family farms, every Sunday evening to learn what lamb, veal, beef, pork, poultry and game is available to us, and build the week’s menu around that availability. Additionally, we have expanded our own garden every year and now provide a significant amount of the herbs, greens and vegetables we use. Virtually all our fish is sourced through Ecofish in New Hampshire, an enlightened wholesaler who overnights our fish from small day boat fishermen who adhere to strict environmental regulations and certification. Our fish arrives at the back door within 36 hours of being caught or blast frozen at sea within one hour of harvesting. Again, and this is a critical element of our mission: the fishermen, farmers and artisan producers tell us on an almost daily basis what will be on the menu. This approach requires enormous effort, cost, and long hours, but it is the only way we know how to do things.

We know our farmers; we see how animals are raised, what they are fed. We watch our cheese being made. We pick our vegetables. We spend time in slaughterhouses. Why go to the bother and considerably greater expense? There is no good food without great ingredients, first off. Secondly, in a time of alarming environmental crisis, it is our small response to a food industry that is unsustainable, unhealthy, and broken. And, finally, buying locally from neighbors just seems the right and natural way to supply our kitchen.