From driving a food truck on Longmont’s roads to parking in a permanent brick-and-mortar on Main Street, FancyAF Concepts LLC is serving up farm-to-table dishes in a casual environment. Its latest venture Main Street Eatery features seasonal menus showcasing locally sourced foods.
Main Street Eatery opened in January last year at 628 Main St. Owners and founders Justin Resech and Eli Wiggs said they were looking for a commissary kitchen for their company FancyAF Concepts, the hospitality and parent company of Main Street Eatery and its food truck business Street Mobile. The kitchen was attached to a storefront, and the duo decided to apply its culinary ethos to a brick and mortar.
Main Street Eatery and Fancy AF is a farm-to-table concept, working with Longmont farms such as MetaCarbon Organic Farm, Red Wagon Farm, Aspen Moon Farm, McCauley Family Farm and Ollin Farms. The longtime Longmont chefs saw a gap in the market for farm-to-table experiences that are “fast, casual and accessible,” Resech said.
“Most of the farm to table restaurants around the area are kind of exclusively high-end. It's not as accessible to everyone now, you know, not everybody gets to try that kind of food and we want to make it more accessible to pretty much any demographic,” Wiggs added.
The majority of the items on the menu max out around the $15 mark. One way Main Street Eatery can keep the price tag low is by preparing dishes in six minutes or less, Resech said.
“We do we take a lot of pride in how we prepare,” Resech said. “A lot of stuff is trial and error when we're creating a dish to make sure we can produce it quickly without compromising the quality or the integrity. Not only are we representing ourselves, but where we're sourcing the food from.”
Keeping it casual, food is served on compostable plates and take out or delivery comes in compostable and recyclable material. Though dishes aren’t presented on fancy plates, the artistic plating resembles fine dining aesthetics.
The menu rotates to use what produce is in season. The current winter and spring dinner menu features lemon pesto pasta served with organic asparagus and heirloom tomatoes, farm vegetable risotto with chicken, and gluten free potato gnocchi served with flank steak.
While working under these limitations present a challenge, it also sparks creativity for the Main Street Eatery chefs.
Main Street Eatery’s menus pull from different cuisines. FancyAF and Main Street Eatery strive to honor the different dishes from around the world, while substituting with ingredients grown in Colorado. A previously served creation from the culinary company was Laulau, a Hawaiin pork and fish dish cooked in taro leaves. Wiggs and Resech substituted the leaves with mustard greens.
“That's the challenge for us is if we're gonna make a street food dish from another country or other region, we're gonna make it with vegetables or food that is sourced from here, so things might get changed, it might get tweaked,” Wiggs said. “Taking the history of the dish and really paying respect to that, and then putting our own little local twist on it.”
Wiggs and Resech, who are longtime friends, have built their friendship around food, and rock and punk music. The restaurant decor boldly displays their personal tastes.
Main Street Eatery plans on opening a patio in its alley way to feature live music and additional food offerings with pizza oven and seafood dishes. FancyAF will be upping its staff this spring and summer to run the food truck which frequents local events and music festivals.
Main Street Eatery differs from farm-to-table concepts that are pristine or rustic. It has a “Vans Warped Tour in 2004” aesthetic, Resech joked, with its black and white checkered ceiling and vibrant purple and green walls.
A quote from one of Wiggs and Resech’s favorite authors Hunter S. Thompson “Too weird to live, too rare to die!” is painted above the door frame in a punky font. Diners enjoy their food at a fractal burned wooden bar table with colorful resin details, that was crafted by their friend. Main Street Eatery rotates work from local artists inside of the restaurant every few months.
“We just wanted to create a place that we would like to go, you know, fun and exciting and something kind of new and different,” Wiggs said.
