Second Place Business/Economic Reporting, 2016
Originally Published Sept. 2, 2016
The business partners behind LeRoy’s newest downtown restaurant have a vision for their enterprise that’s as bold as the flavors they aim to put on the plates of their customers.
“I want to be the best chef in the world,” said Ken Myszka, one of three partners in the Epiphany Farms Hospitality Group which opened the Old Bank Restaurant and Bar at 201 E. Center Street this month.
Myszka — a Downs native and 2002 Tri-Valley High School graduate — is partnered in his innovative restaurant venture with his wife Nanam, a native of Seoul, South Korea, and friend Stu Hummel, who is originally from Pennsylvania.
Nanam handles the business side of things, while Myszka and Hummel are the “Chefarmers” that are the engine behind the Epiphany Farms restaurant model.
Together, they have a vision of revolutionizing the food business by farming the fields that provide the food which will ultimately make its way to the tables of their restaurants.
“I realized a long time ago that if I want to be the best chef possible, I have to learn about agriculture,” Myszka said. “As I learned I realized the system is broken. There’s a better way to feed the local community.”
When he had that epiphany, Myszka’s restaurant vision was born.
Farm to Fork
It was 2006 and Myszka had just graduated from University of Nevada Las Vegas. He was 22 and studying at New York’s Culinary Institute of America when his farm-to-fork concept began inching its way toward something tangible.
In his last semester at CIA, he didn’t hold a job, just worked tirelessly on the Epiphany Farms business plan. He would brainstorm with his friend Mike Mustard, who eventually signed on as a one-year business partner during the Epiphany Farms start-up stage.
As his new concept took shape, Myszka had a setting in mind — his old family farm in Downs.
In January 2009 he left the fast-paced Vegas restaurant life and returned to Downs.
By Sept. 23, 2009, he had sold Hummel on the idea as well.
“Ken drove back to Vegas to pick me up,” Hummel said. “Over the course of that two-day car ride back to Downs, the framework of our partnership was pretty much set.”
Epiphany Farms began to officially take root as the pair started tilling the land on the farm on which Myszka was raised.
All together, the group now manages about 100 acres of farmland. They have 12 sows, 260 hogs, a dairy cow, a steer, 500 laying hens, 3,000 broilers, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, goats, bees, more than 250 vegetables and more than 200 perennial crops.
Much of that stock will see its way to the Old Bank and its two sister restaurants in Bloomington — Epiphany Farms and Anju Above.
The group also operates a bakery and has plans in the works for other pop-up restaurants and permanent storefronts.
Built in the Fields
The group’s three restaurants have been highly reviewed, but the backbone of the business was built in the fields where Myszka and Hummel have been hard at work since they reconvened in 2009.
“For about two years, we did nothing but farm from sun up to sun down,” Hummel said.
While Myszka and Hummel are studied chefs – Myszka at the CIA and Hummel at Le Cordon Bleu – they are self-taught farmers.
“When I first went out on the farm I didn’t even realize a tomato grew with a green thing coming out of the top of it,” Hummel said. “That’s when I realized I had a very big disconnect with the food I was cooking.”
To learn, the pair read books. Books by “the godfathers of organic ag,” books by famous chefs and even books about ancient agriculture techniques.
Myszka even tours the globe, checking out farms of all sizes and specialties to better understand the field, and they both take continued education classes and training when time permits.
They do everything organically without chemicals, even weeding their fields on their hands and knees.
Their goal is to be able to use everything that comes from their farms at the various restaurants they own and plan to own, but right now there is a surplus.
The stock that isn’t sent directly to any of the Epiphany Farms businesses is sold around the state and the nation, with much of it going to Chicago.
It’s a much bigger buying market than the venue which gave the business its start in 2010 — the Downs Village Market.
While their market stand was a hit, it only brought in about $150 per week and it wasn’t long before the operation outgrew its Seminary Street booth.
So the pair began to host at-home dinner parties.
“Serving about 8-12 people was our wheelhouse,” Hummel said.
The dinner parties would consist of a presentation to guests as the cooking staff overtook the kitchen to prepare the meal. An eight- or 10-course meal followed.
In a 16-month period in 2010 and 2011, the group served 116 dinner parties — all with their organically produced foods.
Chad Ellington, restaurant owner of what was then Station 220 in Bloomington, had attended one of the dinner parties. So he knew who to call in March of 2011 when the chef set to host a reception at his restaurant bailed the evening before the event.
“We served dinner for about 150 people with one night to prepare,” Hummel said.
The successful evening led Hummel and Myszka to a partnership at Station 220 and an eventual purchase of the building.
By 2014 it was renamed Epiphany Farms as it remains today. At about the same time as the name change, the group also opened Anju Above in the upstairs portion of the Epiphany Farms building, and the base of Myszka’s master plan was falling into place.
Global Aspirations
LeRoy’s Old Bank marks the latest step in that plan, for which Myszka has global aspirations.
While that’s a lofty goal, the 32-year-old believes the key to it becoming a success is shoring up regional hubs that can produce food for their surrounding communities.
They are well on the way to doing so in the Bloomington area, as Epiphany Farms Hospitality Group boasts 108 employees throughout their fields, restaurants and in corporate offices. More than 20 of those employees were either hired for or brought in to help open the Old Bank.
In year seven of his venture, Myszka said he has reached most 10-year goals. By 2020, he said, he would like his businesses to be handling $10 million of food and beverage revenue.
“Everybody told me I was crazy when I had this idea,” he said. “But it’s working out.”
Epiphany Farms is a major player in the Bloomington area, but Myszka said there’s a long way to go. Per his estimation, it would take 25,000 acres of land to be able to feed the entire population of McLean County from local farms.
It’s about culture too
While the farm-to-fork concept is part of the revolutionary engine behind the business plan, Epiphany Farms is about more than just limiting food mileage.
“We want to establish a culture,” Hummel said. “We want this to be a fun place to work. If it is, it’s a fun place to eat too.”
While Hummel, 33, is an executive chef across the company’s locations, each specific location has a “Chef De Cuisine” that does the cooking and is in charge of food operations.
At the Old Bank, the main man is Martin DeJesus, a 27-year-old originally from upstate New York. He said Epiphany Farms has given him another reason to stay in central Illinois.
Together, the group is excited about the LeRoy location, which has been bustling since it opened its doors in mid-August, averaging over 200 sales per night on its opening weekend.
Hummel said the new infrastructure at the building — which is owned by Ken Myszka’s father — was a draw, as was the local population.
“There are more than 100,000 people within 15 miles of LeRoy,” he said. “There were a lot of green lights when it came to opening this location.”
The confluence of factors, including Myszka’s familiarity with the area, led to LeRoy being the choice for the group’s latest restaurant despite weekly opportunities for expansion in other areas and communities.
“We have a lot of offers from people wanting to be in business with us right now,” Hummel said. “It’s all about analyzing which ones are best for us.”
Together, their vision for the Old Bank is based on community desires — a survey showed the community wanted a salad bar and fish options, so they delivered. The other goal is value-based “refined dining” with a reasonable price point.
The Old Bank is open from 4-9 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 3-11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 3-9 p.m. on Sundays.
After establishing their LeRoy location, the partners are considering a vineyard-type wine tasting business in the village of Downs among several other possibilities in the near or distant future..
After that, the only thing out of the question is dormancy.
“We’ve got three amazing business partners with the same amount of drive and focus but three different perspectives,” Hummel said. “And we have 110 employees with the same positive mindset. Together, we’re unstoppable.”