Welcome to Gracie's on West Main

Project 32

Irish Bacon

Gracie's: a Story

A Story By Jim Rutolo and Gracie Volker

Why do the prices all end .32¢?

Gracie and I have always felt that providing a good place to work for our staff was as important to Gracies as we are. After all, our staff create the experiences you have here. Our mission has always been to provide true human connection through shared great food, and to provide an opportunity to be successful through hard work and drive. At the center of that mission is people, the people that walk through our doors as customers and the people who walk through our doors as team members. Serving both groups is important to Gracie and me.

Gracie's has always been the kind of place people tell stories about! More and more as the years have gone on Gracie and I are less likely to be the ones creating those stories with our customers. They are our servers, our managers, our support staff, our cooks, our bakers, our chefs, and yes, our dishwashers. Gracie and I have felt a greater responsibility to provide more than just a place to work. We have continued to look at ways to give back to our staff, to provide them with opportunities and benefits that are rarely ever available in our industry.

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Jim & Gracie would like to personally welcome you to our restaurant. It’s our entire team’s hope that you have a great experience here with us today. We make everything fresh, from scratch and to-order, and source as many ingredients locally as possible. We smoke our own meats, make our own jams, sauces, and dressings. Our full-time baker bakes all our sweet treats and decadent desserts in house as well- so save room or plan on taking something home!

On an early spring morning, Gracie and I ventured out of the house on a mission. At the time she was always off on Saturdays, but I always worked. So we got up early to make the drive to an almost hidden butcher shop on RT 272, down past Willow Street. For what reason you ask? Well, what else gets a man up early on a Saturday morning- BACON! Now this was months before Gracie’s on West Main was even a glint in our eye.

See Gracie had been managing this little cafe in Strasburg for a few years and the ba-

con was awesome. It came from a now closed butcher shop called Howry’s. We’d tried twice before to head there for some sweet smoked meats. Problem was he

SOLD OUT! That’s right he SOLD OUT! See Mr. Howry was only open on Saturdays, and I came to find out that he was “open” at about 5am and closed when he sold out.

Walking into that Butcher shop was a little like walking back in time. I felt like my grand-parents must have at their local butcher shop. Meat and cheese hanging behind the counter, old pictures and wonderful smells!

I was in heaven! I ordered bacon of course, smoked pork chops, a few steaks for later in the week. I thought I was done, when he asked if we wanted anything else.... it was then that my wandering eye caught it. This small football shaped piece of meat. “What’s that?” I asked. “Irish Bacon” he tells me.

Now I was in my 30’s at the time and had been in the restaurant business for most of my life- and I’d never heard of Irish Bacon. He sees the confused look on my face and before I can ask (because I’m sure I’m not the first...).

“It’s from the shoulder, if I don’t sell a pork butt I turn it into Irish bacon.”

I pressed him for more info... “It’s a muscle behind the shoulder blade, I cure it for 10 days and smoke it for 2 days just like bacon.”

It took everything in me not to eat it out of the bag on the way home, but alas, I had to get to work. My first taste would have to wait till Sunday.

I’ve only had a few of what some may call “life changing culinary experiences”.....This was one! The smell coming off the Irish bacon was transforming. It took me to a camp fire in the hills it was so smoky. Then the taste: meaty, rich, the sweetness of the malard reac-tion. I remember hours later you could smell your fingers, and that lingering smokey bacon goodness was still there.

Well a few months later we opened Gracie’s and Howry’s is my first stop, literally! The Irish breakfast sandwich is

on the menu because I had to share this amazing bacon with

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A Story By Jim Rutolo

“Well, what else gets a man up early on a Saturday morning- BACON!”

“We’re passionate about making your food fresh to order, from scratch, and locally sourced when possible.”

The story of Gracie’s starts long before June 2013. As

a college graduate in 2009, with the recession raging, job prospects were slim. With a degree in history and latin, well realistically it qualified Gracie

to become a barista! LOL, no really!

After months of struggling to find meaningful work in museums, a cafe in Strasburg was hiring. Being only 2 doors down from our new apartment, Gracie applied. Armed with a piece of freshly baked cherry

pie she nailed her interview! That started a three year journey of learning and falling in love with the craziness of the restaurant business.

As for me, well I've wanted to own a restaurant since I was 9. I was cooking burgers &

fries standing on a milk crate

at the pool concession stand at age 11. Went to culinary school at 15. I ran my first kitchen at 16. At 18, I was given my first Head Chef job. After some turmoil in fine dining I gave

the pizza business a try. I

started delivering, then making pizza. At 20 years old, I became one of the youngest store managers in the country for

that company, managing a store that did over a million in sales annually. After a year, I was 21

and burnt out! I’d been in the restaurant business for almost ten years and needed a break.

I really didn’t cook for a while.

I did sales for a few years and then an opportunity seemed

to drop in my lap to open my own pizza shop at 25. I did

and 2 years later I was toast.

I sold out and promised myself

I was done with the restaurant business forever!

As I watched Gracie fall

in love with the cafe she was working at, it reignited some

of those long dormant feelings. We started doing some cooking together. We started catering some events. She was and always will be my Sous Chef!

It was fun and we worked well together.

Gracie loved the cafe she worked in so much that, when she overheard the owner

talking about possibly selling, we approached her. It ended

up she wasn’t really ready to sell. So after a few weeks of dreaming what a cafe of our own would be like we decided to check Craigslist.

Where else do you find your future? But there it was, the 3rd listing on Craigslist.

I called on a Wednesday night

at 8:30pm, got some basic info and set up an appointment to see it on Sunday at 3pm. Then...

I totally forgot about it! It had been one of those fleeting thoughts of “what if we buy a restaurant? HOW much could

it cost?” P.S. No dumber words about the restaurant business have ever been uttered.

The truth was it didn’t matter, we didn’t have two nickels to rub together. So I forgot about our appointment. But as they say, God moves in mysterious ways. See, Gracie’s mom had been working at Zion Lutheran Church right across

the street. She knew we were broke. Freeze & Frizz was

having a banana split sale that Sunday because it was Mother’s Day. So we found ourselves a mile up the road when the old owner called and asked if we were still good to meet up.

I can honestly tell you if we weren’t just up the road we wouldn’t have gone. I said sure,

it can’t hurt to look! Well we looked, and fell in love with

this quirky little cafe with 18 seats, a tiny bar sink, a single sandwich panini press, a hot plate and a half oven.

We loved it so much we looked at all the possibilities,

all the things we could do.

In the end, we had to tell the current owner NO! We can’t buy the cafe. We don’t have the money. Again God moved in

our lives (whatever you want to call it in yours), and He laid out a path. One we couldn’t pass up.

Thank God we did! It’s made all the difference in our lives. We have expanded 8 times, going from 18 to 40, 60, 80, 110, 130 and now 160 seats. We have renovated the restaurant too many times to count, the biggest in 2019 that included moving the kitchen and bakery. The menus and the faces change often. Great food done right is still our goal! The Pandemic has taught us a lot, so much it's a whole other story. We came out of it a better restaurant, a different one for sure but better. Our goals have changed as our lives have too. Now with 2 kids, JW is 7 and Addie 5 we've opened a new place Louie's Kitchen and Bar in Reading. What's next for us, who knows but great food will be at the core of it for sure! ■

Sun - Mon: 8am - 2pm

Tues - Sat: 8am - 8pm

Vol. 1 Issue 5

www.gracieslancaster.com

Gracie's On West Main

Page 8

OPEN 7 Days a Week, and

now open for Dinners!

264 West Main St Leola Pa 17540

717-556-0004