PUTNEY-A packed house celebrated the Gleanery's 12-year run on Aug. 4, as the fine-dining restaurant closed its doors.
The lawn outside was packed as well for the weekly Twilight Concert series. Concert promoter Barry Stockwell offered a touching tribute to Gleanery owner Elizabeth Ehrenberg, which brought a standing ovation from the crowd.
It all started back in 2012. As the deadline loomed for the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) annual Business Plan Competition, Ismail (Izzy) Samad called Ehrenberg, a former co-worker at the Putney Inn, with an idea: a community-supported restaurant (CSR) with a creative and flexible menu using foods, using leftover product from local farms.
With input from friend Alice James, another former co-worker, their business plan won the competition.
"So now we were like, 'Oh, I guess we have to open a restaurant,'" recalls Ehrenberg. The space at the Tavern in Putney had opened up, so they signed a lease.
The BDCC prize was $5,000, and they got other startup funding from a Kickstarter campaign, family, and friends. They set out to market CSR memberships, offering tastings at private homes and the Putney Farmers Market.
People bought shares in the restaurant in exchange for monthly dinner credits - coupling a financial investment with the pleasure of being part of a local enterprise.
"A lot of the furniture and stuff [came from] barter for memberships," says Ehrenberg. Local craftspeople provided ceramic dishware and other items.
They did a soft opening the weekend of the Putney Craft Tour, offering a "very light menu," notes Ehrenberg, with regular hours starting that December.
Samad was chef and worked with James in the kitchen. Ehrenberg managed the restaurant and ran the front-of-house.
Farm-to-table - a learning curve
"Izzy was really into the local food scene," says Ehrenberg. "Originally, we were wanting to glean from the farmers."
But they found that the bigger farms - such as Walker, Harlow, and High Meadows - were already connected to a strong gleaning program.
"So, we started working more with farms like New Leaf and Full Plate that didn't have farmstands," Ehrenberg notes. "With New Leaf we would do trades for one of their shares."
She says that when they delivered the share each week, they'd often say, "Oh, we also have a bunch of extra carrots," or offer something else.
Elizabeth Wood of New Leaf CSA agrees that the Gleanery was "very interested in supporting local farms and, for a number of years, we had people picking up CSA shares at the Gleanery as well as selling vegetables to them."
Another fan, Elizabeth Deloge of Slipstream Farm, said, "The Gleanery has been one of our favorite restaurants to work with. They were one of our first regular customers, always there to support us. [...] We'll miss their dedication to local produce and farmers and their knack for turning a mushroom into a masterpiece."
It wasn't always easy to get local meat. Early on, Samad and James wanted to buy whole animals.
"But that's a ton of labor, and you need the storage space," says Ehrenberg. "Back in the day, Jascha Pick was doing lamb and rabbit, and pork, I believe," Ehrenberg recalls. "I would just drive up to their house and go get what I needed from the cooler. And Jason [Hubner] from Sweet Pickins farm, who did ducks. We would get ducks and duck eggs from him.
"Beef has always been tricky. It's expensive to raise beef, so local beef is very pricey. We did for a while get chickens and ground beef from Bunker Farm, and Bunker would match the Black River [Produce] beef price."
Black River Produce of North Springfield was the only food distributor they used. "They were Vermont-based, and we could get a lot of Vermont product through them," says Ehrenberg. "But they have certain minimums, and we [wouldn't] necessarily have room or afford x amount per week."
Shifting staff, and a pandemic
After a couple of years, Samad needed more money to support his family and took an opportunity in Boston. James ran the kitchen for a while, then moved on herself.
"Nathan Moore - he was the first real chef that I had after Izzy and Alice left," recalls Ehrenberg. "He hadn't run a kitchen before, but he was very skilled and really cared about food and wanted to try new things."
"It was like a perfect Gleanery fit," she says.
When Moore moved on after several years, Ehrenberg's partner, Greg Lenkowski, who had worked at Peter Havens in Brattleboro, became chef and stayed through the end. Ehrenberg remembers that years earlier, "Ismail was [Greg's] first culinary teacher."
Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck a crushing blow to the restaurant.
In March 2020, Gov. Phil Scott ordered all bars and restaurants to close for in-person dining. Soon after, Ehrenberg was hospitalized with pneumonia.
Despite all the disruption, the Gleanery provided takeout, offering entrées like duck cassoulet and seafood bouillabaisse. For Easter, one item was smoked Parish Hill ham, honey-ginger glaze (with Simply Ginger liqueur from Putney Mountain Winery), potato latkes, and roasted vegetables.
In late May 2021 - more than a year after Covid hit - outdoor table service was permitted. "We were very lucky to have the porch," notes Ehrenberg.
In early June, indoor seating was allowed but with many restrictions. Among other rules, tables had to be spaced at least 6 feet apart, the restaurant could not seat more than 25% of its legal capacity, and people from different households couldn't be seated at the same table.
To stay afloat, the Gleanery received U.S. Small Business Administration loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program (EIDL). Ultimately, the PPP loans were forgiven, but the EIDL loan is still outstanding.
Another Covid lifeline was the Everyone Eats program, which provided government funding to buy meals prepared by Vermont restaurants using local farm food and distribute them to the public. Ehrenberg would close the restaurant on Wednesdays to prepare, pack, and label 100 to 200 high-quality meals ready for pickup.
Struggling at the end
With restaurants closed during Covid, most of the Gleanery team had to take jobs in other fields. Ehrenberg had a hard time rebuilding the staff and was forced to discontinue both lunch and brunch.
She explained that many of the dishwashers and line cooks did not have cars, and with scarce affordable housing, it's hard to hire people, particularly in a rural location like Putney.
Over the past couple of years, the restaurant operated with two to four people most nights. "Sometimes," Ehrenberg says, it was "just me in the kitchen."
And with short staff she was no longer free to connect with diners.
"It got really hard," she says.
Money didn't soften the burden of all that hard work, either.
"I don't think I've ever made more than $15,000 a year in salary, and there have been years where it's been way less," says Ehrenberg.
One of the few bright spots was convincing bartender Bonny Kenyon to work two nights a week; the local crowd who had frequented J.D. McCliment's in Putney before the pub closed came with her.
In Kenyon, Ehrenberg was delighted to find someone who could "also do the 800 other things that she does when she's bartending."
Ehrenberg says her best memories are getting to be a part of people's lives for 12 years.
"You do a couple's wedding, and then they come in and they're going to have a baby, and then they come in with their baby, and then they come in and their baby's going to middle school."
When asked what's next, "I'm hoping something very low-stress," she replies.
"What I'm most looking forward to is if I'm on a day off and I'm paddling down the river, that's all that I'm thinking about," Ehrenberg says.
On this final night, several current and former staff members surprised her by showing up to help.
Diners expressed sadness at the loss, but were happy that she would finally be free to move on.
One regular summed it up: "She works harder than anyone I know. Liz is a national treasure!"
This News item by Connie Evans was written for The Commons.