Nu-Beginning Farm: The Store

We are in love with Nu-Beginning. John, Stella and Ginger are wonderful. Fresh, local and unique products and incredible meals to go. After using several meal plans that ship meals weekly, we tired of the lack of variety in their vegetarian offerings, not to mention all of the packaging requiring disposal. Our area does not offer many imaginative vegetarian dishes. We talked with John and asked if he could provide weekly vegetarian meals for us and he immediately agreed. Since then, he has cooked unique and varied dishes we pick up weekly. Our taste buds have been exceedingly pleased and happy. The varied soups are some of the best we have ever tasted. Check out the creative and delicious magic that is John's cooking and be welcomed by great smiles. Do yourself a favor. Make good friends with the people, products and offerings from the Nu-Beginning Store.

What a great store with a good selection of local products. Food was good and service was quick. We will be back!

We found great local items at great prices.

To be fair, this was our third visit in three years and the first two times were both delightful and delicious. Today, however, we had an overpriced and unappealing meal. $11.50 each for a dry and mediocre black bean burger served with a pile of generic potato chips. The vegetable soup looked and tasted like public school cafeteria food and the tomato basil soup looked great but seemed to have not been taste tested by the cook. At $3.50 apiece, the “iced tea” was barely not water. Our previous visits were in the much smaller space before the relocation. Perhaps they should have stayed there and put the money into maintaining quality instead of asking for customers to round up their bill to help pay down the debt. I’m happy to pay good money for good food, but today we spent over $40 on a terrible meal.

This restaurant used to be my favorite lunch place at its previous location, so much so that my friends and I would get cravings to go there. The food was always fresh, tasty, interesting and plentiful, and the ambiance was cozy. But for various reasons, I hadn't had the chance to visit since they moved 2-ish years ago. True, in part I'd been discouraged by initial reviews, but I was curious to form my own opinion. So, thinking that by now the restaurant would be back in its groove, last week I encouraged two companions to join me for lunch there.nnBased on our experience, I don't think I'll return soon. We were the only customers in the place that no longer feels cozy but more like an auto parts store with widely spaced tables. Service was initially solicitous, but degraded over the course of our hour there as three or maybe four people, some evidently quite uncertain, attended to us. It was hard to talk over what was billed as live music but seemed rather to be a jam session of regulars who showed up for the purpose. We found the musical selections strident foreground music rather than soothing background music. When the food finally came, the three meals were delivered item by item rather than seat by seat although we were the only customers there most of that time and our order was not complicated. The food I'd much touted was a big disappointment to all. The burger was overcooked, the chunky vegetable soup was actually just potatoes in brown broth and disagreeably bitter, the salad was skimpy being mostly lettuce, the bread was flat-tasting and cold (and we had to ask twice for it although it was included in one order and requested with another), and the pot of coffee was like tepid dishwater. (In fairness, a cup of a different roast ordered after the meal was quite good -- hot and deeply flavorful.) Only the off-menu scoop of tuna salad and the reliable house citrus vinaigrette were excellent.nnI'm really sorry this was such a downbeat experience for us. When the restaurant was at its former location, not only did I get cravings to go there, but I used to tell everyone I could about it and encourage them to visit, promising they would not be disappointed, and they never were. Sad to say, I don't feel comfortable doing that now.nnThe management are really lovely and I want them to succeed despite the negative content of this review. Hopefully, they'll know what accounted for the experience my group had and be able to address it.nnMaybe if we'd gone just for coffee and pastries midafternoon and the place had been full, we would have had a different experience, for the demands on the kitchen would have been fewer, the coffee would have had to be kept fresh and flowing, and the live music would have provided just the right vibe.