A restaurant can exist one of two ways. It can be a building you go to, grab your food, and leave. Or it can be part of the place it's in. We are trying hard to be the second kind.
In practice, that means you'll find us well outside our own four walls. At the farmers market on a Saturday. At the trailhead before a race, handing out something a little better than a gel packet. At the local events where there are good people and a good reason to be there. If something is happening in this community and we can add to it, we want to be in the room.
We've actually started on this before we've even opened. The hot sauce on our tables comes from a local maker. Our croutons are cut from focaccia baked a few blocks away. Our bread comes from a neighborhood baker we love. None of that is the cheapest way to run a kitchen. We do it because the people who grow and make things around here are the community, and putting our money behind them is the most direct way we know to be part of it.
Feeding people is only half of it, though. We want to be in the community, not just sell to it. That means showing up for the wellness events and the trail runs and the markets. It means co-creating with the artists, athletes, and fellow food people who make this corner of the world what it is. Featuring local work on our walls. Hosting when we can. Saying yes when someone with a good idea comes knocking. Some of these folks helped build Nettle in the first place, and the least we can do is keep showing up for them.
We'd rather earn a place in this community than buy one. That takes time, and it takes showing up when it isn't convenient, and it takes meaning it. We're good with all three. None of this is a marketing tactic. The community is the entire reason Nettle exists. We didn't build this to be a transaction you knock out on your lunch break. We built it to be a fixture, the kind of place that's woven into the town instead of just parked in it.
So here's the open invitation. If you're putting something together, a race, a market, a fundraiser, an art night, whatever it is, and it would be better with us there, reach out. We say yes a lot more than we say no. We're easy to find, and we'd love to be part of it.
