Putting the "Sass" in Sassafras
We grew up in Hillsboro! Our family still lives here today on a piece of land that our parents have worked hard to turn into a small homestead that provides clean sustainable food for our family. It’s hard work, but it’s the most rewarding experience to raise your own food. You get to sit down with your family and enjoy a meal and share stories knowing that your hands created that nourishment from earth to plate.
In our lifetime, we have witnessed first-hand the diminishment of people’s understanding of not only where their food comes from but also the basic skills necessary for preparing it and how it all relates to our health and wellness. More people eat out today instead of preparing food at home than ever before and although this has benefited the restaurant industry, we feel it has deteriorated our connection to our food. Our mom taught herself to cook from a young age and in the end, it was her cooking that brought our dad into her life. Our parents have probably told us a hundred times about how our mom needed work done on her car but couldn’t afford to pay a mechanic, so our dad agreed to do the work in exchange for a few home-cooked meals. They like to joke that she never managed to get that car paid off!
Our mom let us help and watch her in the kitchen from a very young age and in doing so, instilled in us a love of cooking and sharing food with others. It’s no mystery that we found ourselves drawn into working in the restaurant industry. We love the hospitality environment and seeing that no matter what is going on in our daily lives, people always make time to come together and share a meal.
The Future of Sassafras!
The more we learn about raising sustainable clean food for our family, the more we have felt a desire to bring that joy and education to our community. We have been dreaming about opening a restaurant in our small town that serves as a sort of sanctuary. A place where people of all ages can come together, relax and enjoy an always fresh from scratch meal that is approachably priced and made as much from locally sourced ingredients as possible. We want to create a space where people can share a sense of pride when they dine knowing that it’s supporting others that they have personal relationships with and in turn we hope to cultivate a deeper sense of connection among them. In order to execute this goal, we need to build a team that operates much the same way our family does when growing our food. A “restaurant family” that shares our excitement for creating a culinary experience that brings people together again and again! We want to share our understanding of how food influences health and wellness with our staff and teach them basic skills for preparing healthy food at home so that they may share those skills with their own families. We believe that food and its preparation is this universal thing that can bring all people together. An artform that nurtures both the body and the soul.
