Page 14 - The Peorian, Vol 3 Issue 2

14 thePeorian.com
Farm-To-Table: Fresh Table
FARM-FRESH BREAKFAST
New restaurant will modernize an old concept
By Paul Gordon
M any people would
agree that there aren’t
many independent
restaurants in Peoria that serve
a good, hearty breakfast. There
are none who care to make all the
food fresh from the farm, said
Dustin Allen.
That’s why Allen and his wife
Ashley, owners of Edge by Chef
Dustin Allen, the fine dining
restaurant at Junction City, are
ready to open a new diner that
will follow the farm-to-table
concept that Edge does.
“We want to offer Peoria
another farm-to-table option.
Right now it’s only available for
dinner in Peoria. Harvest Café
in Delavan is the only place in
the immediate area that serves
strictly farm-to-table fare for
breakfast and lunch. We want to
fill that gap in Peoria,” Allen said.
The restaurant, which will
open in early April, will be called
Fresh Table. It will be located
at 201 E. Lake St., in the space
currently occupied by Over Easy
Cafe, which is where the Allens
stop for breakfast whenever they
decide to go out for the first meal
of the day.
They were approached a few
months ago by the owner of Over
Easy Café about taking over the
small diner. “We didn’t think
very long about it because we
knew there was a need for this
type of place for breakfast and
lunch. We weren’t looking for a
place, but the place found us,”
he said.
Other than the name on the
restaurant, there won’t be many
changes visible that regular Over
Easy Café customers will notice.
The Allens don’t plan to make
a lot of changes to the décor or
furnishings.
“It already has a great small-
town diner feel to it and I don’t
want to lose that. We want it to
be casual, a family-friendly diner
with high quality food,” he said.
That the diner could be
switched without much work
was another important factor in
their decision to make the deal,
he said. “This is a turn-key deal,
which is what I would have been
looking for. We weren’t of a mind
to build another restaurant from
scratch right now,” Allen said.
He and Ashley opened Edge
last fall after closing Magnolia’s
on Prospect in order to open a
smaller place. They opened after
leasing vacant space at Junction
City and building out the
restaurant from scratch, from the
flooring to the bar to the arena
kitchen to the drapes.
The restaurant’s menu changes
daily because it is heavily
dependent on the freshest foods,
including meats and vegetables,
that Allen can get for that day.
That is one of the reasons he
decided not to open for lunch any
more after the first of the year.
For Fresh Table, breakfast and
lunch will be in the $10 to $12
range and all of the food will
be fresh. He already has started
lining up the same farmers to
supply Fresh Table who now
supply Edge.