Omena’s Cherry Basket Farm Announces New Partner, Conservation Efforts; Riverside Inn Reveals Its Refresh Of The 120-Year-Old Landmark

Alena and Andrew Bowman, who purchased Omena’s Cherry Basket Farm in 2020, announced this week that their historic farm and gathering space will now also serve as headquarters for Island Thyme Catering. 

Cherry Basket Farm has been a Leelanau County wedding and event venue mainstay for two decades and, prior to its sale, was homebase for local farm-to-table pioneer Epicure Catering (now operating independently off-site as Epicure Culinary).

Island Thyme owner Kristy VerSnyder of Lake Leelanau, along with teammate/chef Matt Fitzke-Loll, have been bursting at the seams in their commercial kitchen space in Lake Leelanau, and saw Cherry Basket Farm as fertile ground for their business longterm.

As of this month, Island Thyme set up shop in the commercial kitchen it is leasing inside one of the farm outbuildings. “In 2021 we had to double-down on our business and it became abundantly clear that we needed more space,” says VerSnyder. She will continue to serve booked clients for the 2022 wedding season but sees her role as the on-site caterer at the farm evolving over time.

Alena Bowman adds, “We viewed the commercial kitchen as a community asset, and we want to support another local business. Kristy needed a space that she could scale her business in a way that is sustainable. I am also super excited that this is a woman-owned business and someone who grew up in Leelanau.”

The Bowmans were also familiar with the literal “from the ashes” story of VerSnyder and Fitzke-Loll and their pandemic pivot business, From The Ashes pizza truck. The two chefs and a handful of their employees stayed afloat the precarious summer of 2020 crafting wood-fired pizzas from a pizza truck parked at Fountain Point Resort on Lake Leelanau. VerSnyder has since passed the torch — and the keys — of the pizza truck to Paul Carlson and Eric Allchin, chef-owners of The Tribune and The Union in Northport. (Look for the big blue truck at Haserot Park this Saturday May 28, 2022 for the 25th Anniversary Northport Cars In The Park. “We will be slinging pizzas all day,” says Allchin.)

Adds VerSnyder of the new Cherry Basket partnership, “I read about how they wanted to preserve a sense of community here. And that’s something that Matty and I got from the pizza truck that we don’t get in catering land, because most of our clients are from outside the region. Here, they are interested in doing farm dinners down the road, which we would love to do. There are a lot of discussions in the works.”

Big picture vision for the farm, says Alena Bowman, is to “build community, host celebrations and support conservation. For us, having the first two up and running allows us to focus on what we hope to support, which is a model for viable climate-informed restoration efforts.”

Explains Andrew Bowman, “When we bought the ten-acre farm in spring 2020, the Great Lakes’ high waters that year resulted in months of two to three feet of standing water on three low-lying acres, which drowned existing trees and vegetation. Though it’s required a lot of work, we now consider ourselves lucky to have this baseline. As we plan for the future of Cherry Basket Farm, we are incorporating landscaping that will be adaptive to whatever nature might throw at us when it comes to flooding and climate change.”

Bowman says another goal is to create a haven for wildlife, particularly birds. They have planted more than 40 native trees and around 200 native shrubs with species they obtained from the Leelanau Conservation District, Conservation Resource Alliance, Four Seasons Nursery in Traverse City, and Black Cap Farm in Onekama. Swamp white oaks for instance: “the name pretty much says it all when it comes to being well-suited to wet conditions. We learned about that tree species through the innovative Assisted Tree Range Expansion Project, which aims to create landscapes that will be resilient as northwest Michigan’s climate changes.”

The farm received financial support for this work from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service through its Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

“Jason Kimbrough, NRCS District Conservationist out of Traverse City has been a great partner,” says Bowman. “In addition to helping us revegetate the ‘wild’ part of our farm, NRCS and Jason also helped us install pollinator meadows on a portion of our farm fields. Over the next few years, we hope to see a prairie ecosystem emerge with healthy insect populations that will pollinate our crops, our neighbors’ cherry orchards, and all our native plantings.”

Notes Alena Bowman, “We are planting now what will be viable 20 and 30 years from now. We want to give to the land as much as our predecessors did for the buildings on the property.”

Taking a similar long-view approach in Leland is Kelsey Duda, designer and president of Fernhaus, the hospitality group now managing the Riverside Inn and overseeing a “refresh” for its 120th year in operation. 

Duda announced this week that a whirlwind five-month renovation of the inn’s second story is complete just in time for this season’s reservations. The team also converted the old laundry to become a 5th room, to meet increased guest demand.

She says of the Riverside Inn remodel, which will continue with the main-floor restaurant next year, and the concurrent rehabilitation of Glen Arbor’s historic grist mill, which she is also designing: “I want these to be the places that people bring their kids back to in 20 years. We’re building these to last a long time and we’re building them for the people that live here first and foremost.”

She adds, “We were in a big push to get these open for the season, but now I will continue to layer in and incorporate more local art and other items that will be shoppable.” First up, they are working with Leelanau Books to create a “shoppable” library at the inn.

Meanwhile, the historic renovations at The Mill, which will be another Fernhaus-managed property to house a museum, wellness space, and café: “The drywall is wrapping up this week. And we just hired an incredible general manager, Corey Smith. He’s originally from Michigan and was previously the general manager at W.M. Farmer & Sons in Hudson, New York. Having him on board is going to take us to the next level.”

In a separate venture, Duda is also opening a storefront in the former rock shop in the Leland Courtyard, called Au Sable. She and fellow designer/entrepreneur Marissa Wege of Northern Migration will offer home furnishings, antiques, and curiosities in a second-story loft opening its doors in July.

In the meantime, head to the Leelanau Ticker’s Facebook page for first looks inside the renovated Riverside Inn.

Pictured above: Island Thyme owner Kristy VerSnyder and teammate/chef Matt Fitzke-Loll at their new commercial kitchen at Omena’s Cherry Basket Farm. Remodeled guestroom at the 120-year-old Riverside Inn.