Dining out certainly has its perks: an opportunity to try new, delicious foods, no cooking or cleaning and often an enjoyable atmosphere. There is one question many diners cannot answer: Do you know where the food on your plate came from?  

At Market Restaurant in downtown Raleigh, patrons can enthusiastically answer that question with a hearty “yes.”   Here, a farm-to-table model is used, resulting in fresh ingredients and a steady boost to the local economy.

“The original concept was a little bit different,” Chad McIntyre, the owner and chef of Market Restaurant, said. “But the closer we got to opening, it started to evolve and I started talking to farmers and it just seemed like the right direction to go. It also really just fit with the space and was spot on with the theme of the restaurant.”

McIntyre deals directly with many farmers and often plans his menu around what ingredients will be available.  

“Sometimes we’ll come up with a dish or an idea for a dish and then we’ll see who is growing what, but I don’t go to the farmers and tell them what dish we’re making and what ingredients we need,” McIntyre said. “Instead, I’ll go the farmers and ask what they’re growing this season or what’s available now or what’s going to be coming up soon. Then we plan dishes around that. It’s easier for me to do my menu and for the farmers if we work with the ingredients that are available.”

“The farm-to-table aspect is a huge deal when planning the menu,” Scott Jankovictz, the sous chef of Market Restaurant, said. “You have to take into consideration what’s in season. You’re not getting watermelon in winter. It makes it a little more challenging at times.” 

Market Restaurant has been open since May 4, 2010, and McIntyre has become familiar with many farmers and their crops.

“There are some farmers who we deal with regularly,” McIntyre said. “And they have a few crops each year that I’ve really fallen in love with, like Liberty apples from Sand Hill Farms. They only have a dozen trees that they get the fruit off of so they’ll let me know a few weeks ahead that they’re going to start picking so I know when to go and stock up. We’ll can apple juice and make apple butter and more stuff.”

McIntyre sees the farm-to-table concept as a local cycle.  

“I can see the farm and how they’re raising their ingredients,” McIntyre said. “The money stays local. I deal with May Farms or Ben Shields. These farms will tell people that their ingredients are used directly and locally in dishes at Market. Those people will then come to try out the restaurant.”

Beyond local farms, McIntyre also gets many ingredients from the farmer’s market. However, when it comes to honey, there are actually five beehives on the restaurant’s roof. Market is the only restaurant in North Carolina to have this. The honey will be harvested in house and used at the restaurant, as well as the neighboring Escazu Chocolate.  

“This is more roof-to-table,” McIntyre said. “You can’t get any more local than that.”  

Many dishes, sides and sauces are made in house as well. The ketchup and aiolis are freshly made, the fries are hand cut and the beef is ground in house. On one hand, diners can enjoy pure comfort foods like a hamburger and french fries, but more adventurous eaters or those looking for a culinary experience can have vegan tacos or shrimp and chorizo with herbed polenta.  

Not to say the hamburger doesn’t go through a lengthy process to make it to the plate. McIntyre laid out the steps required to create Market’s hamburger, from beginning to end.

“The farmer has to birth a cow with breeding techniques,” McIntyre said. “He has to spend 18 months raising the calf and now it’s a full grown cow. You have to load it into the back of a truck and get it to a slaughterhouse that passes inspection. Then you slaughter the animal and you can’t waste the animal. If it’s not a pretty, market-ready piece of meat, then you’ve practically wasted it. Then there’s ground chuck and sirloin. We’ll grind it down and add bacon and caramelized onions into the meat to form a patty. Then we take it and cook it and it goes out to the table. That hamburger to go from birth to your plate, you’re looking at a year and a half.”

Daniel Hamilton, a freshman in computer science, thinks the effort Market restaurant puts into serving local, fresh food is worth it.

“I like how everything they served was local and fresh and that I knew it was coming from a place close to home as opposed to far away. It had a very natural feel to it and was a uniquely North Carolina experience since I was eating foods that were from the area. It was a nice connection,” Hamilton said.

The connection is one of the driving forces behind the farm-to-table concept.

“For the diners, it has a lot to do with the connection,” McIntyre said. “It’s one of the reasons why our kitchens are open. I like people to see their food being cooked. I want to break down the barrier between the diner and the kitchen. That connection is interactive and personal. I want people to know what they’re eating and where it comes from.”