The Restaurant Constance and Your Farms, Your Table teams at the Restaurant Constance space. Photo courtesy

It’s been a busy year for Your Farms, Your Table founder and chef Sam Diminich and the business he founded during the pandemic. He’s not only picked up several athletes — including Christian McCaffrey and several NASCAR drivers, as clients — and launched a subscription Farm Cult, but he also announced Restaurant Constance, a restaurant opening in December where Counter- recently vacated. 

Ahead of the restaurant opening, however, he’s got plenty on the calendar. On August 28, Diminich will kick off what he calls one of his most meaningful jobs yet: providing the food for patients at McLeod Addictive Disease Center. His team will cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily for the 36 people seeking treatment at the center — one of the places Diminich has been to for treatment himself. 

“I’ve been to a bunch of treatment centers, and so I have keen behind-the-curtain experience with what the food is like,” Diminich says. “It’s never good. It’s almost always an afterthought. And so for somebody like me, with my team, my crew — we’re mostly in recovery — to be able to be the sole providers of food for people going through such a drastic transition in their life means everything.”

While meals will have to be simplified a bit to meet the budget, Diminich is committed to using the same quality purveyors for McLeod’s meal services that he uses for his celebrity clients. 

Not long after adding three meals per day for 36 new clients, on Sept. 1, significant changes are coming to Your Farms, Your Table. Diminich’s first business arm, a meal delivery service using ingredients from local farms, will drop its dessert course, as well as the price; two courses will now cost $30. 

“What we’ve done from the beginning is try to listen to the people that we get to cook for and the community as a whole,” Diminich says. “And what we’re picking up on is not everybody — and this has changed because it wasn’t like this in the beginning —not everybody’s eating three courses. Not everybody wants dessert.”

Dropping the price point will also make the meal’s price point accessible to more families. In that same vein, there will also be $15 kids options that can be added to orders. There is also now a Your Farms, Your Table retail line available featuring its popular salad dressings, with the possibility of frozen foods and more sauces coming soon. 

“That’s our language in a different outlet,” Diminich says of the retail line. “And so the idea was born.”

Several recent staffing changes, including promotions and new hires, have eased the burden on Diminich himself at both Your Farms, Your Table and Restaurant Constance. Former events director Jill Vande Woude has taken the position as general manager, with Susan Grotts replacing her as director of events. Diminich has also hired Edward Kuehnle as beverage director at Restaurant Constance, where he’ll not only oversee the coffee and wine programs, but also a robust non-alcoholic beverage program. 

“We will focus the same amount of energy that we do with wine pairings as we do with our non-alcoholic pairings, “Diminich says. “You come in and you get four courses or whatever the number is, if you’re a non drinker or sober person like myself, you deserve to have a beverage that stands up to the food that you’re pairing it with. That’s the mission.”

As Restaurant Constance’s hopeful Dec. 5 opening date approaches, details about the concept are becoming more clear. The menu will feature seasonal, local produce in a 38-seat dining room featuring two banquets as well as traditional seating, with no high tops, though there will be a chef’s table that overlooks the kitchen through glass. On the menu will be dishes portioned to a size where guests can order several items and create their own tasting menu. The decor will include a TV screen with footage from the farms supplying the restaurant, and will all play a part in getting across the narrative of Restaurant Constance. 

“For the most part, to sum it up, it’s going to tell a story of myself, [my daughter] Constance, [my son] Allan Grey, and our local community of suppliers and farmers.”