LACE Fridays: fresh flavors, family and friends

BARRE - Ariel Zevon is cooking dinner every Friday night and brunch every Sunday morning. And your family is invited.

On the buffet table at LACE (Local Agricultural Community Exchange), Zevon’s café and community center, might be meatloaf, roasted turkey, lasagna or chicken wings - one dish each Friday night with sides, coffee, tea, juice, milk and dessert - and it’s all you can eat.

The Friday night dinners are a relatively new venture for Zevon, who adds that she’s “still in the experimental stage” in crafting the concept.

“The idea is a family supper, a one-plate special with a vegetarian option,” she said, seated recently at one of the large wooden tables located just inside the Main Street entrance (LACE took over the space that formerly housed the Homer Fitts store). The menu, she added, is “family comfort food.”

The price is $10 for adults, $7.50 for seniors and $6 for children. The hours: 5:30 p.m. until the guests leave.

She hopes to add live music in the near future to attract diners, who currently include a mix of regulars and sometimes a few new customers trying out the Friday night special.

How is attendance? “As is common in central Vermont, it fluctuates with the weather,” Zevon joked.

Sunday brunch, however, is a popular event.

“Sunday brunch has always been a blast,” Zevon said.

The price is $12.50 for adults, $10 for seniors and $6 for children (the hours are 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.), covering made-to-order waffles, omelettes and frittatas, plus juice, coffee, tea and milk. Again, all you can eat.

Food is one reason to visit LACE. It’s delicious.

The other is the atmosphere.

There is a special feel to the large, yellow-walled café, deli, grocery story and community center. It’s part whimsy, part social conscience and part delicious aromas.

The huge area is divided into cozy sections filled with comfortable chairs. There’s a children’s play area and a bookshelf full of reading material.

In keeping with LACE’s mission to bring local produce to central Vermont consumers, bins are filled with fresh produce from Vermont farms - roots and carrots from Pete’s Greens and mushrooms from Tweed Valley Farm, and the shelves offer wines from such Vermont vineyards as Boyden Valley Winery and Shelburne Vineyards.

One of the bestsellers, Zevon noted, is Mama’s Special Organic Kettle Corn. It’s hard to find organic kettle corn, she said, adding, “It’s addictive.”

Soups are a popular item at the deli, Zevon said, as well as sandwiches and burgers (prices range from $4 to $8, with hamburgers being the most expensive). Quiche, cookies and an assortment of baked items fill a glass-fronted case; the grocery sells pasture-raised meats and eggs from free-range chickens. Locally made jewelry, knitted items, crafts and even boomerangs cover countertops and fill cases.

And you can watch the cooks cook.

LACE opened last summer with a mission to help consumers understand where their food comes from and why it matters to buy the freshest, locally grown and raised products.

Ariel Zevon has made doing the right thing taste great.

By Susan Allen
Times Argus Editor