I was having one of my rare “if I won the lottery” day dreams the other day and I started thinking about a restaurant that based their menu off produce, livestock etc grown and raised in one self-contained mini-farm (to the extent this would be realistically feasible. I’m not suggesting mining salt or growing vanilla beans).
But I started wondering just how much land one restaurant would actually need. I’m envisioning several acres of vegetables, a small pond (maybe an acre or two) and pasture land for livestock. I suppose there would need to be an area for poultry and pork as well. I guess you’d also need a greenhouse to continue producing vegetables during the winter season (or possibly just shut the place down for a couple of months).
I have exactly zero experience in the food service industry. I have no idea how many, say, heads of lettuce you’d need to produce per week to keep up with salad orders. I presume for some items on the menu there would be no alternative to buying outside the Farm but what does the Dope thing about how much land might be needed? How diverse of a menu could you devise using a limited number of ingredients? Would it be a realistic project for someone with a couple million in disposable income?
To put it mildly into perspective, in the middle ages 30 acres is roughly what it took to sustain the average family - but that included the right to graze ones livestock on public pasturage. I believe that also included the right to pick up squaw wood [windfall tree limbs] and to trap small game [rabbits and small birds]
I would imagine that if you wanted to raise grass fed beef, free range chicken and all the grains, animal feed and bedding, and fruits nuts and veggies you are looking at perhaps 1000 acres - you producing the flour for breads, pastas and other flour ingredients? You would need to grow at least 2 kinds of wheat, perhaps oats, barley, rye, buckwheat. What about herbs and spices, tea, coffee - exactly how self contained to you want to be?
Any restaurant big enough to make any profit (or even just break even) that serves meat or fish would go through it far faster than you could raise and butcher them. Comparing such a thing directly to middle age farming isn’t quite fair, current strains of fruits and vegetables are bred to be larger and hardier than older forms, and with current equipment planting and harvesting are much faster and more efficient, that’s why a comparatively tiny number of farmers can supply entire countries with produce and grain.
I doubt an entirely self sustaining restaurant would be plausible without quite a bit of land. But you could probably go a long way towards it. Raising chickens could get you all of the eggs you need and some amount of meat (a premium special perhaps?) and raising cows could get you milk and allow you to make and process your own cheese, yogurt, cream etc. But you’d still need a fair number of animals to meet your needs. If your really committed to to owning 30+ acres you could plausibly supply your needs of most vegetables assuming that the lands good and you know what your doing. My suggestion would be to purchase grains and meat from local farmers and grow your own vegetables and herbs/spices and fruits where reasonable.
These guys claim to have done it on just 17 acres - 12 for pasture and 5 for gardens.
http://www.epiphanyfarms.com/index.html
It will take anywhere from .5-2 acres to feed one person for a year, depending on farming methods, climate, soil quality, etc. That’s 3 square meals per day, with meat. A hypothetical restaurant that serves up 100 meals per day on average would be serving the equivalent of 33 people per day (100 meals divided by 3 meals per day), roughly. So in theory you should be able to source just about everything you need with between 15 and 60 acres of well-managed land. Obviously you aren’t going to be completely self-contained, you’ll probably still need to buy things like salt and some spices/herbs that don’t grow in your particular climate, but the farm should supply you with all the calories you need.
Note that this approach will come with a unique set of challenges, for instance if you slaughtered enough pigs to give you 50 lbs of port tenderloin for your Friday night dinner crowd, you’ll also end up with a few hundred pounds of other cuts (which of course you could freeze and sell later). And obviously certain products won’t be available year-round. But I suspect the rotating menu of a place that used this model would be considered an asset to it’s customers.
wheresmymind, that’s kind of along the lines of what I was thinking. If you needed to slaughter a cow every week you’d need to maintain a herd of probably 20-30 head. And then what to do with low quality cuts of meat if you don’t want to serve them at the restaurant? Sell them at the farmer’s market, or trade for other things. And lord, how many chickens would you have to keep on hand for eggs and meat?
I think the vegetables could be realistically grown on a relatively small amount of land (say 10-20 acres) but the protein would be much harder to keep in-house. Dairy would be a problem too, since I imagine there are pretty strict pasteurization requirements.
You’d probably have to outsource most of the protein (you could probably maintain a reasonable amount of fish in a small pond, but the variety would be lame) as well as dairy, spices and seasonings.
I lived for a time in a town that actually had one of these places. It was not, however, a full-service restaurant but rather a drive-in burger joint. One of those rare family-owned places that had somehow managed to stay competitive with Wendy’s, Micky D’s etc. They stayed competitive by serving the best darned burgers in the country. Supposedly all the hamburger, chicken, garnishes (tomato lettuce onion & whatever), fries etc. were grown on the owner’s farm which IIRC was fairly small. Probably about 20 acres. Of course they had to go outside for buns, dairy products, coffee, soft drinks and the like. The place was run entirely by the owner’s family wife, kids and all and was only open about 6 months of the year - closed in winter so year-round storage was not an issue.
SS