Chef-Dinner Destination Sprouts a Non-Profit
Learn about Farrand Hall and its big plans
Finding a Mission in Michigan
There is a great backstory about Farrand Hall, a 12-acre property in rural southwest Michigan — owned by partners James Gray and Jacob Hagan — that over the past six years has emerged as a popular Chicago-region culinary excursion. But I don’t want to bury the lead, so first, the news.
Farrand Farm is a new 501(c)(3) non-profit organization started by the folks at Farrand Hall. The immediate plan is to recruit interns who can learn about the farm-to-table experience from renowned chefs who prepare intimate meals for attendees. Future plans include buying an adjacent 18 acres and using part of it to create a learning farm.
“We're trying to grow Farrand Hall to be like a real public institution, a place where a lot of people are going to be able to come and enjoy the property in a variety of different capacities at all ages,” James said.
It is the latest evolution in what was intended to be a weekend getaway place for the two Chicago residents.
Its location in Colon, Michigan might not have screamed “destination dinner,” given that it is about 155 miles from Chicago and 80 miles inland from the state’s heavily touristed Lake Michigan shore.
But James was acquainted with a number of leading Chicago chefs through his career in operations and business development for food companies and as CEO of an entrepreneur development consulting firm. In 2018, James and Jacob set up a few dates for culinary artists to come out to their place — which dates to 1854 and is on the National Register of Historic Places — and make dinner for paying guests.
“We had this really big old house and it was just the two of us and our dogs,” James said. “So we just felt we really should share this with people.”
The outbreak of the COVID pandemic in 2020 put expansion plans on hold, but it also gave them time to think. The rise of remote working during that period persuaded them that they could maintain their Chicago ties while moving into Farrand Hall full-time. Then, in 2021, their chef-dinner side gig really took off, as James said, “because people were really ready to get back to things.”
That led, in 2022, to the next big step forward. A new building was added with a commercial kitchen, indoor bathrooms to replace the porta-potties they previously provided guests, and indoor seating space that provided a foul weather backup and also enabled them to expand the season well beyond the summer months.
The 2023 season featured 20 dinners with a total of 28 chefs. According to James, the sellout rate was 90 percent. James described the concept as communal and experiential. He added, “We have people telling us, ‘Please don't ever change that, because we get to sit with new people every time we come here. We make friends, and it forces us to have conversation and connection.’”
And 2024 is a year of continued growth at Farrand Hall. Their chef-dinner schedule currently begins on March 16 and runs on most Saturdays through December 7. There are 30 dinners lined up (34 guest chefs), and 10 were already sold out as of February 28. And chefs have started contacting Farrand Hall with their interest in participating. “I'm seriously already talking to people about 2025,” James said.
The hospitality aspect made Farrand Hall a full-scale business that is staffing up. There are now two house chefs, Executive Chef Dont’e Shaw and Sous Chef Lucas Jáuregui, who participate in the visiting-chef dinners and also prepare the smaller scale Friday Dinner series. Alysse Thomas was recently hired as Farrand Hall’s director of experience.
Which brings us back around to the Farrand Farm non-profit, which was incorporated in autumn 2023. The main focus for now is creating internships for current or would-be culinary students from high schools and beyond. James described the culinary program at Kalamazoo Valley Community College as “amazing” and said Farrand Farm is developing a partnership with the school.
He added that when word got out about the non-profit, “We just got inundated with organizations, schools, major foundations and organizations saying, ‘We need this in this community.’”
The next planned phase is the teaching farm, which is expected to cover five acres. “We'd like to put another building up right next to that farm that has kitchen education and training facilities in it,” James said. “We could be bringing interns from all over the country, we could be bringing chefs from all over the country to come and spend time on Farrand Farm.”
The educational aspect will be designed to focus on real farm to table:
Where does our food come from? It's important that we know what we're growing, how we're growing it. Why is it important to understand these things? Chefs today are all about the farm. They want to know who's the farmer, they want to know how the food is being produced... That's important because the guest wants to know that too. We're tired of eating food that is probably killing us.
Although James and Jacob are no longer full-time Chicago residents, they appear to hold to the famous quote from early 20th century city planner Daniel Burnham to “make no little plans.”
As James said, “We can really bring something to this community that is not just an economic driver, but is also a huge impact driver. We believe we have the ability to change lives.”
Readers are My Friends of Distinction
Yesterday I ran this photo of a goose who sure is mellow grazing in the grass. This prompted the trivia question asking what group was responsible for the 1969 hit single, “Grazing in the Grass.”
The answer is The Friends of Distinction, for whom this was far and away their biggest hit. If you guessed The Fifth Dimension, you weren’t far off, as the groups sounded a lot alike. The Rolling Stones was, of course, the wrong choice, but I included them because they educated us in 1968 that Jumpin’ Jack Flash is a gas, gas, gas.
The Friends of Distinction version added lyrics to the instrumental version that was a 1968 hit for South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela. The record became familiar not only because it was a great tune (it was), but because it was one of the instrumentals that disc jockeys liked to use as a lead-in to news breaks.
Your Local Food Forum, 95 percent news and information and 5 percent performance art.
Bob’s World, and Welcome to It
There are some willow trees in the lakeside park that we can see from our high-up apartment. They usually produce their yellow flowers in early or mid March, providing a welcome omen of impending spring.
But with the unseasonably (and in a couple of cases, unreasonably) warm weather of late, we’d noticed a yellow hue coming from those trees. So on Monday, one of our faux spring days, I took a walk to investigate — and I discovered that prior to the emergence of the flowers, the stems also turn yellow.
Learn something new every day. The branches are definitely budding and, if the forecast of a short cold spell is succeeded by more warm weather, those flowers could in fact arrive early. Stay tuned.
Hi Bob! We sponsor the Catcade Gala and have two tickets would you care to go - this Saturday text me if so Michele 312-208-2435