Register Guard Feature Article

Here's the article in Eugene's Register Guard which featured our restaurant. There was an IMMEDIATE increase in business!

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Heavenly haven of Oregon cuisine | Our Daily Bread Restaurant in Veneta serves up original and eclectic recipes in an old, little white church with rustic charm.

By Kelly Fenley

Register Guard special publications

Photos by Amanda Smith

Appeared in print: Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009

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News: Last Seven Days: Story

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Out in Veneta — yes, that on-your-way-to-the-coast little town in the fertile fold of wine and farm country — lies a blissful sanctuary for artisan dining.

Our Daily Bread Restaurant in the old Pentecostal church serves its flock with homebaked breads and desserts, original house specialties like sugar-cured prime rib and marinated salmon seasoned in white wine cream sauce, and dozens of wines from vineyards just a rain cloud or bend away in the country road.

No need for your Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes here, where the dining is at once casual and elegant. There’s an old pew or two at the assorted wood tables, but most folks sit on old-style wood chairs, warmed by a pellet stove and/or little electric space heaters placed along the well-worn wood floors.

By day, stained-glass windows, all in the same chapel pattern of blue, orange/red and clear panes, brighten the mood for breakfast and lunch. By night, antique-style pendant lights hanging from the restaurant’s exposed rafters are dimmed, setting the stage for candlelit dinners with linen napkins.

Either that or celebrating a Friday night football game over original-recipe onion rings and homespun hamburgers, as in hand-squeezed patties between fresh-baked buns. “We don’t often describe ourselves as fine dining,” enlightens Tabitha Eck, who, along with her parents, Timothy and Catharine Perkins, owns and operates the 70-seat restaurant with adjoining country store/wine shop and even a banquet room in the old parsonage. “We reach a fairly broad cut of the population, so we call it ‘family fine dining.’”

But it’s certainly more cafe by day than at night, when the Northwest fare gets pretty eclectic — “even for a dinner menu,” Eck says. Almost all the original recipes are steeped in southern Willamette Valley agriculture and slaughter.

“We try to stay fresh and natural,” sums up dad and head chef Tim. “We make our own bread … and none of it has preservatives. We keep MSG out of the house; nothing is artificial. We try to be authentic, close to the ground — fresh, real good. Nothing that’s going to foul somebody’s system.”

Family hearty

A family mission down to the Perkins’ youngest of five children, Our Daily Bread Restaurant fits heart and soul with a down-home, handcrafted, “wholesome country experience” promotion in west Lane, Linn and Benton counties.

“Oregon Country Trails” entices city folk with self-guided tours of wineries, farms, galleries, restaurants, fiber shops, meat markets, produce fields and other artisan enterprises in the Fern Ridge, Long Tom River and Alsea Valley areas (www.oregoncountry trails.com).

At Our Daily Bread, the handcrafting includes chef Tim’s Northwest menu specialties and head-baker Catharine’s artisan breads and desserts.

Tim credits his “greatest strengths” to mentoring from 10 or so certified chefs during his culinary career. “It sounds cliché, but I do have really high standards,” he says. “I don’t serve stuff that isn’t right.”

Consider his prime rib from the Childers Meat Co. in Eugene. “The way we do it isn’t the common way,” Tim reveals. “I take a knife and poke holes across the top to puncture the sinews and let the flavors seep in.” Lathered in Worcestershire sauce, a secret blend of seasonings and smoke-flavored sugar cure, the prime rib is slow cooked for what Tim calls “a country outdoor barbecue flavor.”

His other claims to fame include tenderized, roasted chicken breast stuffed with dried cranberries, hazelnuts, spinach and feta cheese, and one of his personal favorites, the house chicken borscht.

Other dinner specialties range from fish, oysters and crab cakes to pepper steaks, burgers, pastas and — the restaurant’s latest — foccacias topped with signature sauces and Mozzarella cheese.

Menu prices run from less than $10 to more than $20, and every dinner meal comes with Catharine and crew’s homebaked breads.

Bakery boom

Rising customer demand has Catharine’s convection oven at full tilt these days.

“We don’t make our own bagels or English muffins, but everything else that can be possibly baked and that we serve, we do ourselves,” she says.

Three mainstay breads — whole wheat, French and cinnamon swirl — cover most orders for sandwiches and French toast as well as supplying the dinner menu and take-out counter. Specialty breads from the in-house bakery may include walnut, Parmesan herb, cinnamon raisin and an occasional multi-grain.

Save room for dessert: carrot cake, cheese cakes, bread pudding and pies like lemon cloud, chocolate cream and marionberry.

“I think the majority of our recipes — probably 90 percent — are developed just for the restaurant,” Catharine says.

Culinary calling

Since washing dishes at his dad’s restaurant as a kid, Tim had wanted a place of his own. He found a culinary soulmate in Catharine — in fact the pair met and fell in love while working at the Twin Inns restaurant in Carlsbad, Calif.

College degrees aside, Tim became a career chef while Catharine remained a baker at heart even during her career as a social worker.

Yet the couple still had to whip up enough nerve to buy Our Daily Bread, which already had been renovated into a bakery and smaller scale restaurant over the previous decade by former owner Rick DeAngelo.

“As Tim and I talked, we felt like what we were led to do is own a business — particularly a restaurant,” says Catharine. “That’s my story, so here we are.”

As are the kids.

Eldest daughter Tabitha, 26, bowed out of her University of Oregon studies in pre-med and dance to join the fold as catering and special events manager. Like Mom and Dad before her, she found romance at work, marrying affable waiter Marshall Eck about two years ago. “He married the boss,” she muses.

All the other Perkins siblings — Alexandra Wood, 24, Kasia Wood, 20 (they married brothers), Jesselyn, 19, and Joseph, 17 — also work at the restaurant to some degree. A family that works together stresses out together, but mom Catharine loves the “absolute blessing” of seeing her grown children nearly every day.

In a cozy little old church, nonetheless.

“It’s a wonderful building,” Catharine says. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I always have a good feeling being here.”

Good and wholesome, in fact.

Staff writer Kelly Fenley may be contacted at sp.feedback@registerguard.com.

Wedding at the Blue Rooster B and B

This summer we had the opportunity to cater a wedding at a new venue site for us - The Blue Rooster B and B in Lorane. The B and B is maintained and run by Nancy and sees quite a bit of traffic from King Estate which is just down the road. As one of the few B and Bs in the area, Nancy has quite the monopoly on wine tourists along Territorial HWY.


The grounds were gorgeous! Manicured lawns and flower beds. A large pond and backed by acres of trees with a view down the valley. A huge old barn with re-finish floors for events and several live birds nesting in the rafter. With her unique setting and low prices, Nancy always books out with weddings between Labor Day and Memorial Day and is, in fact, already booking into next year. With this venue site, the bride and groom are responsible for renting and bringing in EVERYTHING needed for their event. A nice thing Nancy does for the wedding party is rent the facility by the weekend not by the day. This cuts out the need for the wedding party to break everything down the night of the wedding or to be rushing around like crazy the day of setting up. Much less stressful.

Like all couples, this bride and groom were working within a very specific budget. Our initial consultation revolved around the different pieces of the reception and what I should / could do as the caterer and what they might look into doing themselves to save money. First up was the bar.

BAR SERVICE
Alcohol is a huge expense for any event. This bride and groom decided they would be better served to hire an individual with an alcohol permit (as the site requires) and purchase the kinds and amounts of beverages they wanted themselves rather than doing it through the caterer (me!). There are pros and cons to doing this. The biggest plus is the potential money they saved by buying the alcohol themselves as they may know someone and get a good deal. With open bars, caterers charge by consumption and this charge is added to the final total on top of which gratuity is figured so they also saved a little there as well. In the end, I don't know how much money they actually saved paying a bartender separately and buying the alcohol themselves.

RENTALS
They chose to handle the rentals of china, tables, chairs, and linen themselves as well rather than go through me. Again, the only cost they saved here was the additional gratuity that would have been generated from a higher final total due to rental fees. If they picked up and returned all of the rental equipment themselves, they could have saved quite a bit of money as rental companies charge an arm and a leg for deliveries. It was a lot of work for members of the family and the wedding party to do on the wedding weekend though. By taking care of the rentals themselves, they also took responsibility of clean up and set up of all rental equipment. Not so, if the caterer handles the rentals.

MENU
We were able to put together a very attractive menu that stayed away from BBQ at the bride's request. To save money, we split the entree down the middle doing Smoked Tri Tip for 100 and Roasted Garlic Chicken for 100 rather than enough of each for all 200. In this case, it worked
quite well, but then again, we always bring extra! We also prepared several appetizer trays at the Mother of Bride's request which were served just after the ceremony while pictures were being taken. It was a beautiful display, but not quite enough for everyone. The bride and groom took care of the non alcoholic beverages themselves as well, so the meal was quite literally all we handled for this event.

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We did our best to clear tables and pick up glasses before we left but, with the family handling the rentals, we didn't stay long after dinner. This was the first wedding I had done where the bride, groom, and assorted family took so much of the work onto themselves. I am a money saver too, so initially, this made sense to me. Now, I am not so sure. Here's a few things to consider when you or someone you love is thinking to save money by 'doing it themselves.'

TIME COST
This is the big one and the one couples and families often deem an acceptable sacrifice in order to save money. Weigh it carefully! Should the Mother and Father of the Bride be shopping for foods, beverages, utensils as well as decorations right up until the day of the wedding or even cooking for the event in their own kitchens. And what about set up and clean up? The wedding party and family should be able enjoy their time at the reception, not jump right into tearing everything down and hauling everything away once the final guest takes off.

ACTUAL COST
I think buying food / alcohol yourself gives the impression you're saving money when really not. The costs are just not going to show up all nice and neat on a catering estimate. Same goes for rentals. All couples save themselves is a little bit of extra gratuity from the rental fees by not going through a caterer for rentals. But they are costing themselves a lot of time and effort in set up, clean up and tear down of said rentals. All I do as the event planner when handling rentals is pass on the exact fees the rental company will charge me.

QUALITY
This isn't one most people think of. Quality is in the details. In general, professionals do a better job than amateurs. Having a professional catering company in charge of the reception from set up and food and beverage service to clean up and tear down will ensure a top notch experience for all of your guests. Thing also won't fall through the cracks like they do when volunteer friends of the family are in charge. For instance, the coffee will get made, the punch bowl refilled, the bar glasses collected in glass racks, trashes emptied, cake passed, and the cake plates and forks in place for the cake cutting. Details really, but these are all details the Mother of the Bride or event the BRIDE doesn't / shouldn't have to be thinking about on the day of the wedding. If you can't delegate a non family member to do these, I think you need to hire someone (like your caterer) to do it for you. Just a few thoughts!

Wine Tasting in Southern Oregon

Monday, the hubby and I headed down to Southern Oregon for some wine tasting at my parent's recommendation. Unfortunately the one vineyard we were heading down to visit (un-named intentionally) was closed Monday. Instead we visited three other vineyards in the area: Henry's, Melrose Vineyards, and Hillcrest. The local area was home to 18 different wineries all of which shared a multitude marketing endeavors including "Wine Tour" signage, billboards, maps, and matching wine bags for all wine purchases at the various vineyards. The cooperation between these intensely competitive businesses was extraordinary! The vineyards went so far as to call each other when their hours changed as was the case the vineyard we originally sought to visit. They had called around after unexpectedly changing their hours about a week earlier and Henry's tasting room had the info. Anyway . . . on to the wine!

I don't have the luxury of tasting wine for only myself. Every time I taste a new Oregon wine, I am tasting it as a bar manager. On one had I evaluating it by itself: for its own unique qualities and my personal likes and dislikes like every other wine taster. On the other hand, I also have to evaluate it by comparing it to wines already on my list for similarities and price point. If there is nothing outstanding about a wine and its the same price (or more) than a wine already on my wine list, what's the point of adding it unless I have a personal relationship with the vineyard?


HENRY ESTATE WINERY - http://www.henryestate.com/
Expect to see several bottles from Henry's our wine list within the next few weeks. We tried all three Pinot Noirs each with different qualities and tastes and found their lower end Pinot more than comparable to Hinman's Pinot with a similar price point. They also served their own rose blend that - in Marshall's words - we could serve all day. The semi-sweet rose had a bit of a sparkle to it similar to Silvan Ridge's famous Sparkling Muscat. Very easy drinking. Perfect for the summer months.


HILLCREST VINEYARD - www.hillcrestvineyard.com
This small vineyard is Oregon's oldest estate winery and home to many of the states first, including it's first Pinot Noir. It is also the founding member of "Oregon Artisan Family Wineries." These wineries take the boutique winery experience a step further with almost total owner/ family control including the making and harvesting of wine by the family as well as living on site. In this case, it was a husband and wife team. A very small vineyard, they only sell wine out of their tasting room, so we brought back a Pinot Noir and Zinfandel that interested us both. Its quite a boast to say you're drinking a wine from the oldest vines in the state. Loook for these two wines on our wine list with in the next few weeks as well.


MELROSE VINEYARDS - www.melrosevineyards.com

This vineyard was the most picturesque of the three vineyards we visited this day. Behind the renovated barn - now tasting room - you can see fields of vines totaling over 100 acres. They are in the process of planting another 100 acres which will make this one of the largest I have see in Oregon. This vineyard is investing much of its efforts in its wedding facilities including a huge banquet hall, full kitchens, landscaping and arbors. A delightful destination spot. This winery is one of only five vineyards who produce a Baco Noir - a lovely, heavy red wine.


All in all, a wonderful trip despite our initial disappointment. By the third vineyard, we were wined out. How a person could do five, I will never know! All the wines start blending together after three. Done wine tasting, we headed back to Eugene for dinner.

All in the Family

I thought this an opportune moment to write a bit about the family relationships for all of you ODB fans out there. Some of us operate behind the scences, so you may not know all of the players that work so hard to make your experiences are the ODB so complete.

Many of you know that our restaurant is family owned, but we give new meaning the to term 'family run.' Our Patriarch and Matriarch, Tim and Catharine Perkins, have five children all of whom have or do work in the restaurant. At present, all seven of us work in the restaurant save the one sister who is volunteering in South America. (Check out her story at http://theperukidsproject.blogspot.com.) The oldest three siblings are married and our spouses have also worked in the restaurant for special events or do presently hold positions there. Here's the run down of who's who and who does what at the ODB.

Timothy (Dad) is our Chef as well as our go-to for any kind of repair or maintenace.
Catharine (Mom) is our baker, bookkeeper, general manager, and also waits tables in the evening
Tabitha (me - oldest daughter) am our events manager, bar manager, marketing person, and wait tables during the day with my husband Marshall
Marshall is married to Tabitha and is our full time day server
Alex (second oldest) waits tables a few days a week when not busy with her full time job in the city. She is married to Robbie who helps us out on special events.
Kasia (middle child) is our full time day cook and is married to David, brother of Robbie, and also helps out on special events.
Jessie (second youngest) helps out in the dining room and bakery when not in another country.
Joesph (youngest) does dishes on the weekends and generally does the heavy lifting these days.

In addition to the family we have three other staff persons who all hold vital positions within our establishment:

Carolyn - our full time evening server
Jade - our full time dinner and brunch cook
Andrea - our part time baker, part time server as well as cooking on occasion

As you can see, we have a small staff and are a rather close-knit bunch because of it. We pull in outside labor for large events (usually people related in some way to our staff or selves), but we truly are the epitome of a small, family owned and run operation. So now you know!

Holiday Brunches Set New Records!

From year one, Our Daily Bread has tried to make the most of holiday celebrations. The first year we tried to do something for EVERY holiday on the calender. After three years, we are finally to the point that our more popular holiday celebrations have a consistent followings and we've been able to eliminated the less popular ones.

Holidays that we have an exceptionally good turnout for include . . .
*Mother's Day Brunch
*Easter Brunch
*Our Annual Anniversary Events
*Valentine's Day Dinner
*Christmas Teas
*Holiday Takeout Meals

Holidays on which we have eliminated special menus/hours include . . .
*New Year's Eve Dinner
*Cinco de Mayo
*Memorial Day
*Labor Day
*4th of July

Holiday's that get one more year to make the team and avoid being cut . . .
*Father's Day
*Easter Dinner
*Mother's Day Dinner

This year's holiday day celebrations of note are our Easter and Mother's Day Brunch Buffets! Easter surpassed all exceptions when we pasted 250 and did 274 for the first time. Mother's Day is the biggest grossing holiday of the year for most restaurants. Ours is no exception. While we know Mother's Day we be just a bit more, we were not prepared for the actuality of doing 350 for Mother's Day Brunch! It was a beautiful day, so outside seating was available. While the dining room may have had empty tables at times, if the weather had not been quite so nice, we would have not had an empty table in the house for five hours! I believe the only way to increase numbers from this point on is to expand our hours yet again. This year we opened an hour earlier at 9am. Next year's brunch may run until 3pm.

I will post a few pictures in the next few days, but just know that the buffets were beautiful. Our regular Sunday Brunch buffets are a delightful treat, but we truly pull out all the stops for these larger Holiday Brunch Buffets. Displays include three-tiered ice bowls, cascading fruit displays and chocolate fondue, an omelet station, a staffed carving station, and more.

Valentine Wedding

Valentine's Day. The lover's holiday. A day for couples. And a very busy night!

Valentine's Day is one of the biggest nights of the year for a restaurant. I know that it is often our biggest grossing night of the year with small tables of two going all out with appetizers and desserts. This year, this very busy night was proceeded by our first ever wedding! We've hosted several wedding receptions in the past year, including my own. And while there may have been people married at the ODB in the past, this was the first wedding WE have ever hosted. Once I receive the pictures from the bride and groom, I will post those as well.

It was a small wedding of about 40 that fit perfectly in our banquet room for the ceremony. We put the buffet in the hallway (where the gift shop was up until the night before) and had the banquet room set with rows of chairs for the ceremony. The family did a beautiful job decorating with simply bouquets and candles. A lovely touch I notice was a white carpet (like red carpet) for the bride to walk down the isle on. After the ceremony, the bride and groom went outside for pictures followed by the rest of the guests so we could set up tables where the ceremony had just finished. We had lots of help from the family. It was definitely not the smoothest transition, but the timing worked out well with picture taking. And it was what the bride wanted. There was even a little space left for a dance floor near the DJ. It was a lovely, intimate wedding. The only thing we were unprepared for was a cash bar, but we worked it out without the wedding guests being the wiser. More later!

Goodbye Wholesale Bakery

For those of you who didn't know, Our Daily Bread Restaurant has been supplying several coffee carts both here in Veneta and in Eugene, with assorted bakery products and, until recently, our breakfast burritos. Well . . . no more! As of March 31st, the only place you will be able to find our popular Pumpkin-Gingerbread Muffins is here at the restaurant. We have been supplying some of these carts for over a year now, so we've committed to meeting the demand in-house with a larger array of pastries in the morning. This, along with the espresso we offer here, might just be enough for the disappointed regulars of our local coffee carts.

BACKGROUND
Like many aspects of the ODB that have come and gone over the last three years, the wholesale bakery idea was one of those that just fell into our laps and we decided to give it a try. We were approached by a local coffee cart about our bakery products. Because of them, we developed a rather extensive wholesale menu and decided to pursue other coffee carts. We even went so far as to hire a salesperson on a commission basis to pursue coffee carts farther abroad in Eugene and Junction City. At its height, we served upwards of 10 different coffee carts several times a week.


NOT SO GOOD NEIGHBORS
The wholesale business is a cut-throat one! Someone is always trying to get THEIR product in over yours. It was a constant haggling process with the coffee carts to get our items at lower prices. Our prices were often under-cut which required us to come back and make a better offer. Both my parents and I, come from 'let's work together' community mentality. We appreciate business relationships and expect them to be honored. We do not operate with a 'dog eat dog' mentality. We were incredibly disappointed by the underhanded actions of fellow business owners to take away our business with the coffee carts. Indeed, our entire breakfast burrito wholesale business was under cut by another local restaurant. While we were disappointed with the restaurant owner (and will never eat at his establishment again), the coffee cart owner is not blameless in this either. The coffee cart owner never communicated what was going on or gave us a chance to make a better offer. She just dropped the burritos. We'd created the wholesale menu and pricing for her and she's just threw away any semblance of a business relationship without notice.

THE DECISION
The decision to discontinue wholesale sales came about quickly based on the above circumstances and a few other reason . . .

1) Profit Margin.
Wholesale is what comes before retail as far as pricing goes. We make significantly less percentage of profit per a bakery item than if we sold it in our own restaurant. In order to make money in the wholesale business, you have to have volume. We don't have the time to grow the business fast enough to accommodate the need for volume.

2) Restaurant Image
From the beginning, we have struggled with the image of being a bakery not a restaurant. Too often, a bakery is all people think of us as. And here we are putting our name out there on a bakery item! It doesn't make much sense and gives potential customers a false impression of who we are. We are much more than a bakery.

3) Labor
The wholesale bakery orders required a delivery driver. Whether it was three items or twenty, the delivery driver (our baker) had to drive the route three times a week. The carts also need their items early so this meant that the baker had to be scheduled at a time that was appropriate for deliveries. This was rarely an efficient use of labor in a time when we were making cuts across the board to accommodate the economic challenge of the day.

All in all, we found the wholesale business to be the wrong fit for us. It took away from the restaurant and gave very little back. Our energies can be spent better elsewhere. We haven't eliminated it entirely. Instead, we set a hire minimum order for wholesale products. This summer will be supplying several local farms with bakery items for resale, but no more of this little stuff.