Lynchburg Business

Father’s Table: Where the Farm-to-Table Movement is Innovatively Old-Fashioned

Issue: January 2012 by Camille Smith in Going Green, Inside The Magazine

Before most people think about what they are going to have for breakfast with their morning coffee, the smell of fresh baked bread, donuts and other assorted pastries is wafting from Father’s Table on Route 221 in Forest. Every morning at 3 a.m., chef Ken Reed puts on his own pot of coffee and begins mixing together butter, flour, eggs and other basic ingredients to fill his bakery for the morning rush. Cookies, cupcakes, bagels, fruit danishes, brownies, donuts and more line the baker’s window in the quaint storefront bakery.

“We are here before the break of dawn,” Reed said. “I come in between 3 and 4 a.m. and I don’t usually leave until 5 o’clock. It’s a long day, but I’m having fun.”

Reed will be the first to admit that he has no plan to get rich from his business venture. It is labor intensive to make so many products from scratch on a daily basis, but the decision to prepare food from fresh ingredients was not a hard one.

“We are a flour, sugar and eggs bakery. We make fresh food; it is what we are about,” Reed said. “Just today, we made old-fashioned pound cake with butter, eggs, flour and sugar. That is how I learned and that is how I’ll die trying.”

For fresh-made bakery products, the prices at Father’s Table are competitive. Reed promises his customers ingredients he refers to as “the real thing:” real butter, almond paste and fruit fillings to make his products original and as fresh as possible.

“We try to keep our prices low to keep things affordable,” Reed said. “The price of food is escalating. To provide quality, food from scratch is growing expensive. The food profitability is a very small margin. It would be worth it financially to have processed food, but for me—ethically and emotionally—it is not worth it.”

Reed’s philosophy is to pursue excellence at any cost. He is looking to reduce his carbon footprint by baking from fresh ingredients and buying as much from local farmers and vendors as practically possible to avoid having products shipped.

“I just met with a salesman who suggested I start getting frozen cinnamon buns and what have you, but it just goes against my nature. I specifically ask if we can buy the closest local products available,” Reed said. “Flour might be impossible, but produce we can do. So much is shipped such long distances these days that it can be difficult, but whatever we can get our hands on, we will.”

Father’s Table bought local tomatoes through the fall and fresh Halifax melons while they were in season. Keeping up with what is available at local farms can be tedious, Reed admits, but his dedication to quality has not faltered.

Father’s Table has extended beyond the bakery since its opening. Reed and his staff serve a daily lunch buffet, a Saturday morning breakfast buffet and cater on and off-site events.

“I made the decision to start my own bakery with the equipment I had in storage and started scouting out locations about a year and a half ago. The catering side has always been,” Reed said. “We have diversified ourselves in our business. If it was just the bakery by itself, we would be out of business.”

Father’s Table Catering operated out of an off-site kitchen in Altavista for five years. Traveling from the kitchen to location and back again for each event proved wearisome for business. Opening the bakery in a centralized location has minimized the amount of travel time and maximized opportunities for the catering side of Father’s Table. Currently, they cater more than 100 events a year in addition to the demands of the bakery. Twenty-five employees, including most of his children, cover every aspect of the business.

“We have a fun time here and great people that we work with,” Reed said. “I am trying to create a team that has the same mindset and the same philosophy in pursuing excellence. I want everyone to have a sense of ownership.”

The friendly and attentive staff anticipates the needs of their customers and help to create the inviting atmosphere. As each batch of scratch-made delicacies rise in the oven, it appears that Father’s Table is well on its way on that pursuit towards excellence.