The Farmer's Diner

Yesterday, the Splendid Table on NPR profiled Tod Murphy, the creator of The Farmer's Diner, in Barre, Vermont. The company pays a profitable rate for fresh product to farmers within a 70 mile radius of the diner. The fresh product is then processed at the Farmer's Diner Commissary before it arrives at the restaurant in a form that restaurant workers are use to handling. The restaurant's prices are set to compete with a typical diner.

Although he said that they are currently only making a small profit, there are plans to open two more 150-seat restaurants in Vermont before the company starts to expand throughout the New England region. The company's goal is a nationwide network of restaurants, each one buying from local farmers, and the website lists potential social and economic gains of buying and eating locally grown food. Cool.