To better inform patrons of where its products are coming from, Boca Kitchen Bar and Market has hired a farm coordinator and implemented what it calls "Local Dirt" menu inserts.
The Hyde Park-based restaurant brand's changes come on the heels of a two-part series from Tampa Bay Times food critic Laura Reiley, whose in-depth investigation led her to uncover a number of local farm-to-table fables and gain national recognition from outlets like NPR.
Part 1 started and ended with Boca, one of the region's early proponents of farm-to-table dining. But Kevin Enderle, a partner of the BE-1 Concepts hospitality group that owns Boca, said the brand's improvements were already in the works before Reiley called his chefs with questions about product sourcing.
"I called Laura and had a conversation probably three or four weeks ago, and when I was talking to her, I felt like there was a need at that point, but it's something we'd been working on," Enderle says. "I had it on my to-do list for probably a year, so I was trying to get to it while opening restaurants, and that's when I decided we really needed to hire somebody."
The Local Dirt inserts, provided to diners who stop into any of Boca's three locations (two more will open in St. Petersburg and Sarasota in coming months), are essentially ongoing informational updates. They list ingredients provided by the brand's current farms and partners, plus dishes on the menu that incorporate those products.
Updated on a monthly basis (though it could be more often than that), the inserts highlight items available for purchase from the restaurant's in-house market and will include seasonal news as well — what's growing in Florida and what's not, for instance. Local Dirt has since replaced the Boca website's "Farmers" tab, which Enderle said had some information that wasn't properly updated.
Monica Griffin, who transferred from an urban farm in Riverview a couple weeks ago to serve as farm coordinator, says she plans to help maximize the brand's territory, keep its relationships strong and be more community-friendly.
In addition to working with Boca's farms and suppliers while pursuing new partners, Griffin is responsible for keeping Local Dirt up to date and acting as a resource for diners with questions about sourcing.
When asked if he thought patrons would have trust issues despite these changes, Enderle said that's why the inserts include URLs for each partner ("If they wanted to look it up or call, they could"). According to him, the brand's biggest challenge is getting product from the farms to the restaurants; if it's not local, Enderle said, it's the highest quality possible that Boca can find.
"We still try to do the best job we can. We're passionate about it, and I just want the guests to know that," he says. "We didn't do a great job getting the message out as good as we should, so this has forced us to do that. And I think people will be impressed with how hard we work at it and how many farms we do work with."
Enderle claimed that the Times investigation incorrectly characterized two Boca products as well.
While Part 1 said Atlanta-based distributor Halperns' Steak & Seafood (which does business as Halperns' Steak & Gary's Seafood in Orlando) doesn't have a record of Florida pink shrimp purchases from Boca this year, Enderle showed invoices to CL disputing that. On Tuesday, Halperns' Steak & Seafood founder Kirk Halpern confirmed that Boca is currently buying pink shrimp from his company.
The case studies portion of the series also said the Tampa menu's naturally raised Tecumseh Farms chicken doesn't come from Culinary Classics in Orlando — it doesn't. Enderle said Boca gets its Tecumseh chicken delivered via Halperns' and showed CL invoices for those purchases; Halpern confirmed that his company is currently supplying Boca with whole natural air-chilled chicken, but couldn't confirm whether or not the chicken is from Tecumseh Farms.
Toward the end of Part 1, the "About" section noted restaurants that revised, or agreed to revise, their menus as a result of the investigation. Jackson's Bistro in Tampa was among them.
In a statement, Chris McVety, a partner at Jackson's, which is undergoing a $1 to $2 million renovation project, apologized on behalf of himself, his partners and management. He said they're thankful that the misrepresentations, presented to them just before the restaurant's redesigned menu was printed, were brought to their attention.
"Inattention was the primary cause of all three issues Laura pointed out in her article, which is why no one lost their job over this," McVety says. "In fact, I personally feel that I let the sushi cooks down by not having the proper communication and training processes in place to prevent such an incident from ever occurring. This was a failure of management more than anything else, and I accept full responsibility for that."
According to the statement, the restaurant's new bill of fare takes the Times article's theme further by listing counts (such as "four coconut shrimp"), specific types of protein and weights where appropriate. Plus, the kitchen staff now verifies where the Jackson's food comes from and is preparing "an internal information board" for servers, who will then provide that information to diners upon request, as well as help with proofing and critiquing the menu's honesty.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2016.