“Housed in what was for generations the family-run Bond Fruit & Dairy Stand, the seasonal Stonecat Café in Hector, Finger Lakes, NY has a rich history of connecting the community to healthy, locally grown ingredients. Founded in 1999, the Stonecat Café was an early leader in the farm-to-table movement in the region.”
“Stonecat Café’s late owner and founder, Scott Signori, believed passionately that food is life and how we choose to nourish our bodies has a direct connection to and impact on our communities. When we feed our bodies with vibrant fun food, grown locally and sustainably, we sustain the soul of our community helping local farms and businesses to thrive. Scott passed away tragically in late 2021 at 54, leaving a lasting legacy of passion for good food, wine and scotch. His character, integrity and kindness live on in the Hector community and beyond.”
“Today, the Stonecat Café continues to be owned by the Signori family and is managed by a team of restaurant professionals, all proud to have been Scott's friends and have worked at the Stonecat in previous years. Staying true to their original mission, they are threading sustainability through all aspects of the operations. Stonecat partners with more than 20 regional farms to source high-quality, fresh organic ingredients to satisfy guests’ hunger and numerous local wineries, breweries and distilleries to quench guests’ thirst. Management ensures equitable pay and shared tips for all team members and strives to reduce their environmental footprint and keep menu prices reasonable, while still providing guests with the same amazing food experience.”
Executive Chef Jeremy Personius worked with Chef Scott previously and maintains his traditions of utilizing the whole animal and house-smoking. Classic menu items include cornmeal crusted fried catfish and slow smoked pulled pork.
General Manager Katy Dunlap stays with us sharing the inspiring story of resilience of Stonecat Café.
Hi, I'm Sherry Yard, the Los Angeles Advisory Board for Careers Through Culinary Arts program. When I want the absolute best in Food 411, I listen to the SoCal restaurant show right here on AM830KLAA. And welcome back. It is our two of the SoCal restaurant show, and we're here with you every Saturday morning from 10 a.m. until 12 noon right here on AM830KLAA, the home of Angels Baseball 2024, and you can also catch us on the AM830 Angels app. I'm Andy Harris, the executive producer and co-host of the show. Glad to have you out there. Thanks for spending part of your Saturday morning with us. We appreciate it. My colleague, Chef Andrew Gould, will be joining us a little later in the show with his usual Ask the Chef segment, and we're proudly presented each and every week by Melissa's World Variety produce and West Coast prime meets. We're journeying back to the Finger Lakes in New York, specifically the little hamlet of Hector, which besides having some wineries also is the home of the Stone Cat Cafe, celebrating 25 years this year, and we're speaking with their hardworking general manager, Katie Dunlap. Katie, welcome back to the show. Now, your right hand is Chef Jeremy, who worked with your founder and owner of the late Scott Signore. Tell us a little bit about Chef Jeremy's style and how he has really perpetuated Chef Scott's vision with his own flair. Chef Jeremy is actually a native to this area and sort of working at the Stone Cat in his early 20s became in love. Just fell in love with food and cooking and ultimately went to the Culinary Institute of America, came back and worked at the Stone Cat in a couple of different capacities, and learned some of the techniques that Scott Signore had embodied within the restaurant. When Scott became ill, in late 2020, he asked Jeremy to come back and to help to begin to manage the kitchen, and, first of all, carry on his Scott's whole animal program, which is kind of unheard of these days. It's when a restaurant buys the whole animal, does all the butchering in-house, and then uses all of the parts in different dishes throughout a select period of time. So Chef Jeremy came back and did that for him in 2021 before Scott passed, and once Scott passed, he hand-selected Chef Jeremy to carry on as the head chef. You know, Katie just absolutely amazing. Now, something briefly I want you to share with our listening audience, Chef Scott really wanted locals to be able to enjoy Stone Cat, and when you use local ingredients and support family farmers, there's a larger cost associated with this than buying from a mainline distributor. This is not commodity products. So, as part of his game plan that he left in place before he passed, he wanted to revise the service concept at Stone Cat to preserve the quality experience that diners have, but being able to keep costs in line so the locals still enjoy Stone Cat, but also be equitable to both the serving staff as well as the people in the kitchen. Now, I know there's a lot there, kind of give us a brief overview of how that all worked. Yeah, so sustainability has always been a part of Scott's commission, and as COVID creeped in, he started to see some things that were not sustainable. Obviously, we all in the restaurant business experience, the guest angle, the staff reduction, etc, etc. Got asked his family before he passed to carry on Stone Cat Cafe. He said that broadly and said, "I want to maintain the sustainable mission," and fortunately, had many good friends who have known them for years and have worked with them for years and came up with a blueprint for how to make that happen. So, let me just, if I can quickly summarize what that means. It's not just about running a self-serving restaurant. It's more like running a campaign to change the dialogue about how and what we choose to eat and drink, how we treat staff, how staff are treated within the institution, and really about how to continue to create and support a sustainable community. So, what Scott envisioned was an equitable pay situation. So, we continue to support the local farms because actually, the variability, the volatility of price, I'm sorry, food prices during COVID was pretty crazy. So, we're working with local farms where maybe our prices went up just a little bit in terms of the ingredients that we're receiving for our dishes, but if you're working on the bar scale, all of a sudden, you're olive oil just went up 75 percent. You're screwed. No doubt. So, yeah, there are certain aspects that we had no control over the prices, but I still working with the local community farms and, yes, paying just a bit more to gather that produce, to gather the meat, to get all of those ingredients, to be able to put into our dishes, we're still able to offer a fabulous food experience. And then, what we did was decided to pay everyone equitably into shared tips across the board, which is legal in New York State under certain parameters, and we were able to do that. And I'll tell you what, the results have been that we did not have to hire this year. So, every restaurant around us was looking for employees, and we didn't have to because all of our employees returned when you pay people equitably, when you share tips front of the house and back of the house, evenly, not every sandwich base, evenly. There's a respect that rises up, and everyone acts as a team. And so, we cross-trained our employees, some of our employees work in front of the back of the house, depending upon the needs. There have been days where I have done the dishes because it needed to be done. And so, there's this really amazing team dynamic, and when you have a happy team who feel appreciated and respected and treated equally, that carries over to the guest experience, and we're seeing that already. Katie, I'm into that. And we need, before we're fighting the clock here a little bit, but we need to talk about food a little bit. And I think the best way for someone that's new to Stone Cat to kind of understand the overall is a dish that you put on for the 25th anniversary, and that's the 25 sampler. Very briefly, can you talk about Chef Jeremy's components for the 25 sampler because it's delicious? Well, absolutely. So, these are actually staples from our very beginnings. These are staples that got ahead on the menu for years and years, and we decided to create smaller portions and bind them onto a plate to recognize our 25th year in business. So, it's our cornmeal crested catfish. It's our hectare pulled pork barbecue that we, of course, smoke in house. I know everyone smokes in house these days, but we've been doing it for 25 years. You're here. It's our fresh, it's our fresh dill coleslaw and our house made cornbread, and it's really just a delight. Everything kind of comes together with a little southern flair, and it's all produced with local ingredients down to the cornmeal and the honey that goes in the butter. Got to love it. Now, equally quickly, you know, someone would see a corn dog on a menu at a fine dining restaurant and think, "What the heck?" That corn dog is something really special, really fast. What makes the corn dog so special? Well, we make the house made maple juniper sausage, right? So, we make that in house, and then we smoke it, and then we have a really delightful batter. I can't give away the secrets. Chester maybe would not appreciate that, but it's a two-step process, and it is not your average corn dog in terms of size. It's an adult-sized corn dog, first of all. No, no, and something really special. Katie, as we need to say goodbye, you mentioned your seasonal. What is the season for Stone Cat Cafe? Well, generally, we are open April, sometime in April through November. We're closing this year, November 9th, and it's just the opening of the latest mid-April next year. And one more time on the website. Stone Cat Cafe, all one word, StoneCatCafe.com. Ladies and gentlemen, the Stone Cat Cafe in the Finger Lakes, Hector to be specific, we're in the area. This is a must-stop. What a wonderful tribute to their late founder and executive chef, Scott Signore, doing something very special with local ingredients, and a very happy team that's there. You are listening to the SoCal restaurant show. When we return, it's Knox and Dobson Craft Premium ready to drink cocktails, one of the specialty items that's going to be available at the upcoming Manhattan Beach Food and Wine Festival. Do stay tuned. It is the SoCal restaurant show. We're proudly presented by Melissa's World Variety Produce. We'll be right back.
