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Tessie’s Tavern on Route 107 in Bethel, housed in the late 19th-century Harrington mansion, serves up what it calls comfort food, such classic American grill fare as burgers, fries, steak, chicken wings, Caesar salad, fettuccine and fried chicken.
Wild Roots, in the Fox Stand Inn on Route 14 in Royalton, on the other hand, specializes in the kind of seasonal, farm-to-table menu found routinely in New York, Boston and Portland, Maine.
This month the restaurant is offering locally-raised pork with grits, aged cheddar and mustard greens, nettle and scallion dumplings with ricotta whey, garlic mustard and mint, and asparagus with egg, herbs and mead, among other dishes. The goal is to locally source as many of the ingredients as possible.
But both establishments, coming into historic locations that have seen restaurants come and go, and go again, have the same goal in mind.
They want to bring the pleasures of good food and drink to areas where that usually means driving north to Montpelier or south to White River Junction and Hanover, or trekking over the hills to Randolph and Royalton.
“Our local demographic is the people in the community,” said Peter Varkonyi, the chef at Wild Roots. “It’s welcoming, it’s comfort, it’s nostalgic.”
“We built this to cater to locals,” said Matt Martin, the owner of Tessie’s Tavern, which is named for his mother. People have told him, he said, that there isn’t enough of a customer base to make a go of it. Martin thinks otherwise: “There is if you build the right place.”
While Varkonyi, and Wild Roots owners, the husband-and-wife team of Josh Walker and Jayne SullyCole, had some concerns initially about the location, they realized that it was equidistant, more or less, from all the Upper Valley farms that supply the restaurant with produce, eggs, meat and poultry.
It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement, said Walker. “When you are here at Wild Roots you are supporting each and every farmer. It puts food back on their table.”
At Tessie’s Tavern, Martin and his brother Greg, who own a contracting business in South Royalton, worked for a year to renovate and shore up the Queen Anne-style mansion, built for businessman Edwin Harrington, which dates from 1891. It was a restaurant from 2011 to 2015, before the previous owners went out of business.
“It’s a full, but not necessarily historic restoration,” Martin said. “We’ve put our heart and soul into it basically.”
The brothers have added a full porch to the front of the building, where patrons can eat and drink. They modernized the kitchen, did some work in the bar and dining areas and are putting seven apartments into the building, which will be available for rent later this summer. They are also taking advantage of the large front lawn to add seating on the grass, near a newly-built open fireplace.
Between the bar and restaurant, the tavern can seat around 150; the Martins have hired about 20 staff to date. Both state and town officials have been very supportive, Martin said.
For chef Dana Hansen, who went to high school in Bethel and whose resume includes stints as the head chef at 506 Bistro in Woodstock, the motivation for becoming the chef at the tavern is simple. “I want this town to have a place to go at a decent price with a decent meal.”
He added that he will use local ingredients as often as he can, while keeping the prices at the restaurant within reason. The goal is to share “the wealth that Vermont has to offer.”
Varkonyi, who received a degree from the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, was executive chef at the Home Hill Inn in Plainfield, and worked at restaurants in Denver, Colo., and Napa, Calif.
SullyCole and Walker were both working in Vail, Colo., when they met; they were married in 2014.
The couple both had restaurant and bar experience — SullyCole is a trained sommelier; Walker worked as a barback and doorman — and were serious about opening their own restaurant. SullyCole is from North Thetford, and her mother lives in Thetford Center.
When SullyCole and Walker visited, they decided to search for a suitable location for a restaurant.
The Fox Stand Inn, completed in 1818 as a stagecoach tavern overlooking the White River, stood empty after a previous effort to revive a restaurant and bar there in 2015 lasted about a year. The building itself is owned by Matt Matule, a Vermont Law School graduate and Massachusetts attorney.
SullyCole and Walker advertised the executive chef position on the Thetford listserv, and through the New England Culinary Institute and the Culinary Institute of America, but heard about Varkonyi through their accountant. After serious discussion, the three decided they had the same approach to a farm-to-table restaurant.
“We really wanted to find a chef who would take our vision and run with it,” Walker said.
“We strive for the highest level, but we want our intentions and ambience to be comfortable,” Varkonyi said.
Wild Roots has hired about 10 people so far, and can comfortably seat around 50 patrons. “You don’t want to get too big so that farmers can’t support the volume. You don’t want to compromise on quality,” Varkonyi said.
Although not everything can be produced locally — olive oil, for example — the trio are doing their best to assure that their sources are local and regional, and conform to their ethos of sustainably and ethically produced meats, cheeses and produce.
The wine list draws on family-owned vineyards producing smaller-batch boutique wines, SullyCole said. And if it’s gin or vodka you’re interested in, the distiller is Barr Hill in Hardwick, Vt.
“For the three of us it’s a realization of a life-long dream,” SullyCole said.
For Hansen, Tessie’s Tavern is also a dream realized. “It’s a great opportunity for downtown Bethel,” he said.
And, in case it was in question, the French fries will be fresh and hand-cut.
“Definitely no frozen French fries,” Hansen said.
For information on Tessie’s Tavern go to tessiestavern.com or call 802-392-8042. For information on Wild Roots go to wildrootsvt.com or call 802-763-0440.
Nicola Smith can be reached at nsmith@vnews.com.