Business as Usual Explores Eating Local with Bar Marco and Footprints Farm

 

Transcription: 

Good afternoon, everyone. This is Audrey running the Pittsburgh Technology Council joined today by Jonathan kersting, Vice President of all things, marketing media and storytelling for the tech Council. He's been around doing that work listening to the pulse on the ground for a long time. And before I introduce our guests, because I'm I'm getting hungry, just having some time talking to them. So I'm pretty excited to have a lunchtime conversation with the both of these two gentlemen, we have, I want to give a shout out to Huntington bank for them doing work and supporting us for the entire year, on running our daily show, as well as just supporting us in all things across the community. They are very active in helping the business community solve lots and lots of different problems, don't hesitate to reach out to them. They're very civic minded, as well as super engaged in terms of the work we do across the tech economy. And then 40 by 80, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Pittsburgh tech Council, that's the latitude and longitude of Pittsburgh. And our our focus is on workforce development and making sure that we're not leaving people behind for the next iteration of job opportunities across Southwestern Pennsylvania, and including entrepreneurship. So listen, this is our opportunity. Just listen to our guests, you can ask questions, this is all about them. This is not a time for us to sell our wares. This is not a time for us to do any kind of self promotion. We're focusing on our two guests who I'm introducing right now. So the first is Justin Steele. He's the owner and chef of bar Marco. And he's going to tell us all about bar Marco and what he's been up to, etc. And then we also have this fine gentleman here, Jeff, Jeremy Swartz vaguer. And he is with us. And he is the owner of footprints farm. And you might wonder what are the two of them have to do with each other and within a moment, you're going to find out. So thank you both for being with us today, taking the time, and really letting us sort of get immersed in terms of the world that we really do care about. You're part of the ecosystem here. Your work matters to us that COVID doing what it you know, did in terms of our region, as well as around the world in terms of restaurants and food and food, supplies, etc. Just you name it. I know the both of you have been touched by it. So I'm going to kick off and welcome Jeremy, Jeremy, come to tell us about what you've been up to and how you're holding up. So tell us about bar Marco, a little bit about some history. And, you know, then we'll get into some questions and answers. So are you originally from Pittsburgh? You know, what's the reason for bar Marco? I mean, there's a big vision around that work, the restaurant that I think people be interested in hearing.

Sure. I grew up in Erie and lived in the suburbs of Pittsburgh for 15 years. Can you hear me all right. And my wife's family had a 400 acre farm that was a cow. Okay, and we were able to move there and start what we dreamed about in our 10 years of marriage prior. And that was connecting with folks like Justin, and so many other chefs and in home chefs across the counties to provide food that was raised in a way they could feel good about that was extremely nutrient dense, and that was super fresh. So my wife and I, about 10 years ago, moved to the farm and begin building a family and a business that directly serves customers just like Justin and so many others. with fresh chicken, fresh eggs, fresh vegetables, pork that was you know, slaughtered the day before very fresh ingredients, so that they could deliver to their customers, this amazing eating experience.

So so let me switch around. I think I switched the names around and I was focusing on BB Marco and I apologize that I swapped it around. So Jeremy, you are you actually moved out of Pittsburgh to start this work?

Right? If a county

okay. Okay, so let me let's get talk to Justin real quick about a bar markup. Give us a little bit of the history.

Yes. So bar Marco was founded by me and my three best friends from high school. Really about 10 years ago. We all quit our day jobs and my store parents just Marian kind of followed a passion which was to to for the four of us to come together and start our own business and in particular that this restaurant was a time in Pittsburgh. When there weren't many restaurants like this, which is one of the things that drove us to do this sort of this sort of space and this type of food, we had experienced similar concepts traveling through through Europe or just even other parts of the country to the to the partners originally moved back from New York and the dining that we were experiencing in these other cities and countries just wasn't something that was was happening here. 10 years ago. Now, thankfully, there are dozens of great places like minded people, Chef driven restaurants like this and really inviting atmosphere. So we're in good company now. But it wasn't the case 10 years ago, and really was we out of, we were able to kind of succeed and make it to this point, just kind of out of a little bit of luck. Maybe at the beginning, but a lot of determination and hard work. Just kind of like anything else.

You definitely forge the path in Pittsburgh. I mean, if you could just brag on that a little bit. I'd say you should own it. Yeah. forge the path. It was noticeable. Shifting conversations about about your food, your approach your engagement with community. I mean, you should talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, I'm getting better at building some of this stuff. But yeah, it was kind of we just weren't going to take no for an answer. Even when we started. We had no restaurant experience. Literally, I was a busser I bussed tables in high school and through college, that was literally it. When we opened I was a chef by default, because I was really the best cook. But we we knew what we wanted to do. And because it wasn't something that was going on in Pittsburgh at the time, maybe there was maybe a little pushback or whatever. But we were, we were just confident in in the product. In the end what we were going to do and we just weren't, we were going to fail or we weren't. And that was okay. We were just committed and committed to kind of seeing our vision through.

And then and then for a while, did you have a place in East Liberty?

We did, we opened a second bar in Liberty called the Livermore. And it was that bar thrives for a couple of years. And we took we took a lease next door without really a definitive plan. And just at the end of the day, it was just we, we took on a little bit more than we had planned or or could chew. And I don't know we move forward and learn from it and little bit of a relief on it when it honestly closed because we were able to kind of shift our focus and focus more back on bar Marco, which is kind of where our passion has always been.

Well, I think I think that people need to understand that you really are entrepreneurial. And what you're doing is entrepreneurship right at its core. So you did some experimentation. There's a lot of growth in East liberty, that we're sure you know, cool things going on. Right on that Highland Avenue. And there still are right? Yeah. You might have been first mover in there. And sometimes first mover isn't the last, you know, the last one standing. Yeah,

we were Yeah, we

went in when the rate when the Ace Hotel was going in. And we were even talking in talks with some of the developers for that project. And we looked at, we looked at the restaurant space in that hotel. And then eventually just decided on the on the corner of balm and Highland there, but yeah, so it was

you made some good moves. Justin, look where you would have been today.

Yeah, right.

I mean, no more Ace Hotel. And you know, all those changes. So you know, you were you were before your time. And I mean, and so Jeremy, did you have any experience in farming, or in anything in you know, in raising meat, and vegetables and all the things that you're doing now.

I had experience every day, my childhood, my grandmother grew up on a Market Garden, and the Great Depression. And so I spent every day with my grandmother during my childhood. course I hated weeding, hated collecting eggs, and hated moving cows as they were being milked at my uncle's farm next door. But I love the groundedness that it brought me. I love the simple design of creation that allows us simple C to magically turn into food that tastes amazing. It's still amazing that, you know, as a middle leader, a milligram of a seed can produce 1000s of pounds of other seeds, just by design, all intrinsically right in front of our eyes in the creation. So my background was in building water and wastewater plants. I started that right out of high school, finished a college degree, build about 20 in the Pittsburgh area and then my employer had passed away. And so that transition me to a point where I was really hungry, to go back to my roots and to connect with that very simple nature component that was so peaceful and life giving to myself and my grandma, my whole family growing up Mom always had a half acre garden. Wow, we ate everything from the garden for six months of the year. I walked around the knees of my uncles and great uncles and grandparents as they butchered a cow or a pig. In my childhood. I remember the taste of fresh cracklings. And a lot of the motivation for starting the farm wants to share that experience with my children. Brian's family, so many other families, right, as we share what what God has given us on our simple little place,

but you have a particular way of farming. Can you can you talk about that and the people that work for you, as well? Yeah,

so really, the farming system is designed around harvesting solar energy. And what that involves is every animal lives that lives on the farm. Once it's an adult spends its entire life outside, it's moved to New patches of grass, new pastures, new hay fields, new lawns, so that each animal can digest ample amounts of grass. Imagine how healthy you'd be if you ate a pound of spinach with every meal. And it allows us to farm in a way that doesn't require any pharmaceuticals. Our only three pharmaceuticals are apple cider vinegar, garlic, and tobacco occasionally,

huh, tobacco,

okay, and it allows every part of the farm to continue in a big cycle. Or the cattle graze an area that chickens clean it up. They allow for better grass to grow our meat chickens harvest it, and then our pigs do all of our tillage. And so it's a very simple system that allows each animal to express its nature.

Wow. And so, Jeremy, what about how many people do you have and how large is the farm?

The farmer is about 400 acres. And currently we only have two full time employees during the hypermart season will have about six. We're just now on the ramp up phase right as that spring grass is starting to grow it greened up yesterday and a little bit today. And then our main season starts in May 1. We are super thankful to be located near a three quarter house in Farmington, Pennsylvania, where gentlemen, we meet a lot of gentlemen that are in heroin recovery. And after they've been through a portion of that program, they come out to the farm and experience what peace is. They get away from all their troubles of the world and they start to rebuild their lives together. It's a very, very right place for some amazing relationships. Great purpose. And also when everything else is falling apart, and you know you can show up and have a meaningful work. It really gives the guys an amazing boots and starting their life over again.

Wow. Wow. So how Justin, how did the two of you partner and how and how does that work? So can you give us a little bit like behind the scenes?

Yeah, I know we were hosting Justin Severino for from who formerly of cure now who is more CEA one of the best Pittsburgh chefs Barton on fantastic chef but he was hosting an event here. I think it was a whole hog butchering class and luncheon and Jeremy was providing the pig the hog for that day and I think I just met Jeremy passing him in the kitchen and he asked if we'd be interested in working together at some point in the future and I'm sure I'd had his products at cure and Justin's restaurants before didn't really know Jeremy or the or the farm. But one of the things we the with the food here is it's very, very simple food of our Marco so we need to have the best ingredients that we can get our hands on because we don't we try to let the ingredients shine. So we're always open to finding new and better ingredients and Jeremy's Jeremy's products, because of all the things that he just explained certainly fit the bill and it's I mean, it's the best that we can get. So that's where how that started.

So what how far out are you Jeremy from the strip where they are in bar Marco? How far is the drive?

Yeah, so we're, we're about 52 miles.

Okay. Okay.

And I think Justin, when we first met, I think you helped me carry that pick up those flight the steps. Yes.

That's great. That's a great story. So so you have relationships share Jeremy with other restaurants as well, as Justin just spoke about. And you also you also have a chicken farm, Jeremy. Is that true?

Yes. So that's we raised chickens, pork, beef, eggs and bacon. Vegetables and deliver fresh to about 30 restaurants across the Tri County region.

Okay. Wow. So, Justin, I want to go back to you in bar Marco, one of the things that's also very special about bar Mark Are you were the first in probably in Pittsburgh, I don't know, in the state of Pennsylvania to have a different model, and in many ways more traditional model of how your employees were paid. And, you know, you're one of the few in the United States that that did that. So can you talk about that? And why?

Yes, so maybe it was seven or six, probably seven years ago at this point, which seems like a long time for now. But we decided to do away with traditional or on traditional really restaurant model of paying employees through through tips, and decided to put everybody on staff on full salary and provide health care and paid days off. And really all the the things that go along with, with air quotes, normal job, bout three years in again, we started with no experience, and we made it to the three year mark, we kind of looked at ourselves and said, How the hell did we get here, and it was really by having and hiring great passionate employees who, who really treated this, this hospitality industry as a career and not just a side job or something to pay some bills while they got through college. So we wanted to if they were treating us as a profession, we thought that we needed to treat them as career employees and as professionals. So that's how we kind of made that jump.

You did away with tips. You paid people, you paid people a decent salary. And so no one ever tips up our Marco.

They certainly certainly try in it the beginning, there was a bunch of pushback and people were people were outraged, really, and they just didn't understand it. So whenever whenever we do get tips, they go to a charity or some kind of case. But if you pay with a credit card, which 90% of people do, there's not even a line to tip. So you cannot,

but I want it to hand you a $20 bill. Amazing meal.

Yeah, server would argue back and forth with you for a little bit. And then but at the end of the day, though, we they would take it they would go to charity, or some nonprofit.

Wow. Wow. So you've built a business model that is, in many ways that just makes it work. And I think that's an important thing.

You know, anybody that goes to work at a bank, right, they're not tipped, and they do they do a perfectly fine job. They don't you don't need tips. tips are it's a it's a flawed system. And people think that then people who come to work aren't incentivized or whatever. It's just, it's just not the case. And we found that we have built a better team and our employee retention has been way better doing doing this this way. And I don't know that it's a model for everybody. But I think that folks, other other folks should at least consider why we did it and and how maybe it could benefit them. But

well, let's talk about COVID. You know, let's start just a little bit like what did you do? How did you adapt? And I'm going to ask the same thing of Jeremy. Well, yeah,

I mean, literally a year ago, right, was when we had had to shut down I think, a year and a week ago, like everybody else in the world, we didn't really know what was going on. So we we tried to be careful and wash our hands and do all this stuff. But we closed down and then just tried to do takeout every day and basically provide our full menu. Because again, we didn't know what was going on. And we were just trying to try to survive and make it over the course of the ensuing days and weeks, we we realized that we had had to close our doors and sort of transition to doing really just take out take out a few nights a week. And it became very apparent very quickly that we just had to survive and kind of do whatever we could just to kind of make it through and through some of the government loans, the PPP loan, ie ideal economic disaster relief, I mean, we've been able to kind of bridge that gap. And now thankfully, we're sort of sort of seeing the light here at the end of the tunnel. And Governor Wolf just announced the other day that on April 4, we can go back to 75% for indoor dining and the lakes. But our dining room is still very, very small. So 75% for us to still make sure that people are six feet apart doesn't do a ton for indoor dining. So yeah, we're trying to figure out what what the what the next few months looks like and how we do want to ramp up and try to get back to whatever the new normal is and take really what we've learned over the last year and figure out how these concepts We'll apply and what we want to take from the last year and keep going now, takeout always be a part of what we do, and probably part of what all restaurants do. We did very, very little takeout before, just because our food wasn't really suited to it, you know. But we've had to change the menu and adapt some dishes and make them more suitable for for folks to take home.

And now it's interesting, who ever would have thought, right, who ever would have thought that you would have done takeout? And now it's going to be part of your fabric a little bit, right? And you're able to have seats outside. So once the weather breaks, you have seats outside. So that'll help. And what about events? Because you did advance and I'm gonna talk to Jeremy about events as well.

Yeah, events, we're still able to do in again, unlimited quantity with the with a 75%. That'll help because we have an event space upstairs that holds 50 to 60 guests. What we won't do 50 or 60 currently, but we can host 30 or 40 people spaced out, and we have enough space for that. So that's been good, I think is the is folks kind of see the weather kicking, we're getting more and more, more and more requests for bridal showers, weddings, rehearsal dinners, those things, those family events that really folks weren't able to celebrate last year so that there's definitely some pent up demand that we're we're thankful to be seeing.

And then you then just talk a little bit about the wine or the you know, the you call it I mean room that you could go to private dining.

Yeah, it's done in our in our wine cellar. We have one table that kind of seats 10 people community we used to see we if you had two people and another group had two people then there was a party for we used to see community. We've obviously stopped with that. But yeah, now we can host up to 10 people kind of from the same same group. And that's really great. Because then they're they're secluded in their own room. There's nobody else around the people can feel more comfortable. And it's it's a it's a inviting kind of intimate space.

And then the other thing before I go over to Jeremy, if we order from Jeremy's farm, we can pick it up at bar Marco, is that correct? Yeah,

I think through Jimmy's website, he can definitely speak more to that. But he comes down and think for a while it was every week. And so it's sort of like a little like CSA kind of situation.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great, and gets more people into bar Marco, to just to see what you guys are up to. So it's a nice relationship. So Jeremy, let's talk about COVID. Let's talk about COVID. And how it affected your livelihood.

Yeah, unfortunately, in farming, all your decisions are made at least a year in advance. And so if you can imagine a production pipeline that swinging up our old model was that we were 100% seasonal, and 100% fresh. And we had our whole year production growing, you know, pigs, we have to decide a year in advance, when that board goes in with the sow, how many babies we're going to need. And chickens is a three to four month turnaround turkey six months be three years. For us, there was a real scramble, obviously, in the March. And I remember calling Justin and asking him, Hey, you know, basically, we're gonna be in trouble if we don't move this. And so Dustin, and was gracious enough to allow us to use his parking lot. We still do that every week, alternating between Wednesday and Thursday. And so we began to reach out to many other farms, all of our wholesale accounts. I mean, again, who would have thought that 30 customers, six universities would have just closed all in a matter of week, right, our business would have been turned upside down. But again, Dustin was gracious. We now delivered to about 300 families in the Pittsburgh area. during April last year, we were up to almost almost 500 families that were ordering from us because of that is the large demand in food uncertainty. And so our model changed. We went from having everything fresh, butchered by my hands the day before to, we could offer things frozen. And we also really got into further processing our products with some snack sticks and jerky that I'll tell you about just to hold the shelf life because those year old decisions were already made. And thankfully, you know, as soon as things kind of got reorganized. Dustin was able to purchase things for takeout and still use those fine ingredients. And then for a lot of events he's been plugging us along the way. It's been a unique year though, in 2021, because the whole restaurant industry is still shaking. Right. And normally I would meet with Justin in February and ask him what to grow for him that coming year. This year though, everyone is uncertain and can't make those predictions because we felt there were Sponsored government oversight and closures, and it was out of our control. So this year's model will be a lot like last year's model as far as production and, and still providing the high quality ingredients in the farming activity. But it might not be one day fresh anymore. I just couldn't manage them every

day. Yeah, I mean, you've got to be cautious. We've got to be cautious. You're acting, you know, in the right way. So so just in the restaurant, bar Marco is open now, right? You're gonna end soon you're gonna be able to have 75% capacity. I'm hoping that you put your your picnic tables and tables outside very soon. Right. And you maybe that will equate to indoor dining of 100%. I don't know. But what so what's on the menu? Now? What? Give us some good like if we were to stop, stop by what's your favorite dish? Right now? What are you serving? Yeah,

so we we, I mean, bar mark, we've always changed the menu very, very frequently, daily, even bi weekly. Now we're at least trying to have a little bit of stability but we still want to keep the I don't want to stifle the creativity from the from the folks in the kitchen and also in myself. So we changed every two or three weeks now. So we have a new menu tonight for this weekend's takeout we actually have one Jeremy's coincidentally one of Jeremy's chickens on the menu. So we're doing half of footprints farm roasted chicken. And again, we just treated super super simply just pan roasted with a little bit of olive oil, butter, some fresh sage. And then seven it was some really beautiful just simple simply roasted potatoes and Italian sofrito which is like cooked down carrots, celery, onion and some really nice olive oil. And let's say we just try to try to buy these really really nice ingredients and basically not screw them up. And there's always a cost on the menu. So this weekend's pasta is the last of last year's pesto. So there's almost eight months out of the year there's probably some sort of pesto on the menu whether it's kale pesto or in the height of summer really fresh basil pesto. Last year we again all these farmers had all of these crops and all of these all these products so all the produce was still available because like Jimmy said a lot of these planting decisions already made so there was plenty of basil plenty of kale and ramps last spring. So we we still produced and made the the pesto's and things like that, but we stored them and froze them. So this weekend next will be the last of last year's pesto on the menu and then hopefully, hopefully the weather cooperates and we can get some some some spring vegetables here and started out again

about to serve

a really beautiful Tuscan rice and egg custard torte which is like a really popular like Easter sort of style cake from from from Tuscany. And we've been doing a lot of Millie's ice cream so a lot of people on the on the call know Millie's ice cream. But Chad and Lauren who own milk are really good friends of ours and and we love, love, love love their ice cream. So we have they did a spumoni for us, which is like, Oh yeah, a combination of pistachio chocolate and strawberry ice cream. So we have the ice creams to go as well.

Okay, like I'm salivating now. Okay. Really, really? And and, Jeremy, what are you delivering? What do you have right now that you think people should know about that this week? I hopefully I don't know, Jonathan, if we put out their websites so that people can go out there. Okay, it's been out there. So what do you have that you should think about? You mentioned eggs, chicken? Pork.

Yep. Right now we're delivering fresh eggs to the city every week. 14 different locations for families. Every every month, and we are delivering frozen chicken. We're delivering all grass fed beef. We still process our pork every two weeks. So we've got fresh ground sausage, bacon ham for Easter. And right now we're just on the upswing garden is the ground is broken. We planted our first seeds last week. And the weather forecast looks super, super high potential to have greens here in late March. And and then everything else following in May. Okay, so

Pete if Are you near nemacolin?

We're very near nemacolin. Yeah,

so people can if they're at nemacolin, they can just swing by direct Saturday mornings and

Monday evenings. Okay.

That's great. Yeah, don't drop in any other time, right.

Fortunately, we're gonna put you to work.

And then so what about for Marco? I'm getting hungry right now. So, so tell me your hours or what? And we're gonna make sure that we share this.

Yeah, of course. So we're open. We're doing takeout right? Now Tuesday, Friday and Saturday evenings, okay. And then we're also again hosting folks in the wine room downstairs, up to 10 guests, sorted by reservation. So we're open if folks want to come in on Monday and enjoy dinner, we'll come in and cook it, we're not really limited to Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and then probably around the first of April, we're gonna we're gonna kick some outdoor dining and expand ours a little bit probably for four or five days a week and have some outdoor dining, as long as the weather cooperates a little bit. And also, right now, a big part of our pivot this year was launching a to go wine program, with some form with some former employees of ours. Two young ladies were very passionate about the types of wines that we were that we were serving in the restaurants and that they were getting before every night at service. And we had to figure out how to how to still be able to get these delicious, delicious wines to the great people of Pittsburgh. So Christine, Celine launched a company called nine o'clock wines. And we've partnered with them and created a little to go wine bottle shop in the dining room of bar Marco since there's now plenty of room without folks eating in here.

Well, listen, what what you're doing is the same kind of thing that we care about across the tech ecosystem is creating a real ecosystem where people collaborate, they leverage from one another skills, and they use that as a trampoline to launch their companies. And it's amazing. It's amazing. Justin, what you've done with bar Marco, I've been I've been a fan since the onset. I can't wait to come back in. Thank you for for joining us today. And Jeremy, it's great to meet you and hear about all your passion and your farming techniques. And really caring because we've seen so much go under, we've seen so much go under both Jeremy in your space. We've seen farms close up, right. And we've you know, that's hurt the restaurant industry. And then we've seen just the devastation in terms of, you know, the restaurant industry. And that is really what both of you do is so important to the kinds of people that are working in building the future for tomorrow. We can't do it without the work that you're both doing and building. So I want to thank you both for being with us today. Everyone. Reach out we've given the links people are saying check out the chicken parmesan at bar Marco I say check out the pesto and this amazing dessert. They have great appetizers as well. I mean, they always change up have amazing cheeses. And Jeremy, I'll be sure to check out your farm and we'll be making sure that people know about you. And that will continue to support you the collaboration is just phenomenal. So my hats off to both of you. I won't make any jokes about your hat Jeremy but my hats off to both of you. And I know it's cold out and I know that you're farming so I'll keep I'll keep my my sarcasm to myself. But thank you, Justin, thanks for being a leader. Thank you, Jeremy for all you do. And everyone have an amazing weekend. Jonathan, before we go What's up for next week?

We're kicking off Monday with a really fun conversation I'm going to enjoy between a why a why eight instruments in Maxwell motors helping them build electric delivery vans. So these are really cool talk. We love all things. Evie here because we love all

things electric, Justin and Jeremy. So we're trying to make sure that we're leveraging our assets here and getting ready for the future and caring about our environment and climate. So see, we all care about the same things right? And then good. We have a packed week next week. Everyone stay safe. It's sunny out might be a little cold. Take advantage of both of these guys companies because their success is our success. So I can't thank you both. Justin Nice seeing you again. Nice meeting. Jeremy. Thank you, Audrey. Okay, take care everyone. Bye

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