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.

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.

West Lane News Article

Here's an article printed in this week's edition of the West Lane News, our local paper. They did a great job on the gift shop.

Gift Shop Features Local Goods
By MATT NICHOLSON Of The News
January 1st, 2009



VENETA — Our Daily Bread, one of Veneta’s most unique restaurants, has added a gift shop to a menu of services that already includes weddings and catering. Opened in conjunction with last month’s Christmas Bazaar, the gift shop will both cater to tourists and provide a marketplace for local producers to sell their goods.

The gift shop, called Our Country Store, occupies a small corner of the lower floor of the restaurant’s renovated church. It is stocked with local and regional products including gift baskets, cheeses, baked goods and a wide selection of wines from vineyards all across the Southern Willamette Valley.

Some of the first goods to be carried in the shop came from the restaurant’s next-door neighbor, the Farmers’ Market, which is held on the lot adjacent to Our Daily Bread. Tabitha Eck, who co-owns the restaurant with her parents, says the restaurant’s proximity to the Farmers’ Market has created a valuable partnership between the restaurant and local producers.

“It’s a great connection to have the local growers on board,” says Eck.

Housed inside a renovated church, Our Daily Bread stands out from Veneta’s eateries in more ways than one, with its vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows, wood furniture and warm character. The restaurant’s peaceful, aesthetic atmosphere has made it popular among locals for events ranging from lunchtime gatherings to weddings, but it’s also become something of a destination location for passing tourists. Eck says the restaurant’s unique structure is a big draw for tourists.

“Where have you ever seen a renovated church that has been turned into a restaurant?” says Eck.

Eck says that in the future, she would like to incorporate an art gallery into the gift shop to support local artists. Currently, Our Country Store features a few pieces from a local metal smith and a glassblower. But Eck says she would like to create an expansive gallery with rotating exhibits from local artists. She thinks an art gallery would be a good fit for the restaurant.

“It ties in perfectly with our desire for local (goods), and it ties in with our gift shop, as well,” she says.

Eck says the gift shop carries local and regional goods to support the Willamette Valley’s artisan producers. Eck says the new shop retails goods produced outside the valley only when they aren’t found locally, such as some varieties of red wine. But in keeping with the local emphasis of the restaurant, everything in the gift shop comes from Oregon.

“I try to only go out of the valley if there’s something we don’t have,” Eck says. “ I don’t have anything that’s not Oregon.”