THREE’S A TREND

We Bought a Farm

Want bespoke produce? You need to get your hands dirty

New York City has over 140 farmers markets across five boroughs, offering hundreds of varieties of fruits and vegetables over all four seasons. So why would you ever run your own farm? 

It’s a question we’ve been asking more and more restaurateurs recently. In an industry with notoriously thin margins, a dollar saved is a dollar earned. Farms don’t typically save many funds. 

But the upsides are tangible. Ben Keunwoo Park, sous chef at Joo Ok, the two-Michelin-star Korean restaurant that oversees a farm plot alongside other chefs in Bloomingburg, New York, explains: “We don’t approach the farm as a cost or profit center; it’s part of how we define quality. The value is in reducing compromise. Certain Korean vegetables, especially those used in fermentation, require consistency over time—same seed, same soil, same handling. The farm allows us to work with ingredients not just as products, but as processes.”

Flynn McGarry, who opened Cove in October 2025, shares that meticulous attention to detail. He tends an acre and a half tucked within Isabella Rossellini’s Mama Farm in Bellport, which allows him to share resources with his landlord. In the case of Cove, McGarry wanted the ability to create his own flavor profiles.

Last year, he grew 15 different kinds of basil, all so he could narrow down to three winners that fit the Cove flavor matrix. He grew caraway thyme, but instead of harvesting once it sprouted, he let it flower and discovered it became appealingly spicy. Enter a new flavor for his menu. 

When we heard that Jean’s ran its own farm, the response around the office was “Wait, Jean’s on Lafayette!?” Yes, that Jean’s, which gives the phrase “clubstaurant” a good name. Owner Max Chodorow understates his farm’s involvement with the restaurant while overdelivering on the quality of its food. 

Since his 2019 start, he’s expanded his three-acre farm in New Hope, PA to 36 acres. The extra acreage allows him more creative freedom with his work, though it also means he now staffs a four-person team to help run it.

The tomato salad at Jean’s is Chodorow’s personal favorite. While it may appear as one of the simpler dishes on the menu, it calls for specific tomato varieties grown in the farm’s living soil, which uses its own compost, no fertilizer in sight. 

A green zebra tomato, multiple red heirloom varieties he has bred over the years, sun golds and orange icicle tomatoes all come together to create a perfect summer salad. 

He waits all year for that bite.

If you’ve ever been to The Masters, you know that Augusta National offers what is perhaps the best hospitality experience anywhere, sports or otherwise. There is the back-when pricing of its open-air concession stands: $1.50 for a pimento cheese sandwich, $3 for fried-chicken cutlet on a roll. (Pro tip: Buy one of each and combine them into a shockingly good combo sando.) There is the ultraluxe club-within-the-club that is Berckmans Place, which makes Zero Bond or Maxime’s feel pedestrian. There are the mega merch shops, which offer to UPS your purchases directly to your home at checkout. And this year, Augusta patrons are celebrating the addition of the Masters Candy Bar ($2.25). Which might make some folks wonder, Any nuts in there? What about eggs?

Turns out, Augusta even does allergens well. For a breakdown of concession-stand dietary restrictions, the tournament’s design team produced a snappy scorecard that would appeal to any golf nerd. Even over here at the Short Order copy desk, staffer Becky (GF, V) admitted she admired the clever treatment—so much so, she said, she might consider watching some golf this weekend.

Take a Dive

Brooklyn’s beloved Montero’s has new owners. Don’t freak out

Opening something new often means contending with something old. Even the Times Square Margaritaville was built on a 1931 synagogue. The same is true in New York’s harbor, where serial boat preservationists–turned-restaurateurs Alex and Miles Pincus prefer to establish their restaurants on sea-worn vessels rather than new ships or empty dock berths.

This month, the brothers’ restaurant group, Crew, is taking over Brooklyn’s Montero Bar & Grill, the 1939, beer-steeped testament to Atlantic Avenue’s longshoremen past. Before anyone calls the dive-bar police, first give a listen to Alex, who has spent a career preserving historic sites, outfitting them for the here and now. 

“I used to be an architect, and I was not into traditional architecture, I only did futuristic buildings. Then somehow something switched inside of me. I started to realize that what feels forward-looking from an architectural standpoint is not necessarily the same as what feels good experientially. I got more and more interested in places that already have a feeling to them—places with a built-in sensibility or character. It’s like a free leg up, because you can’t fake that kind of thing. So we’ve really become drawn to spaces that have that built-in character.”

While he is keeping Montero’s decor, furnishings, and lighting pretty much as is, he plans to make a series of upgrades, from updating the sound system and curating the tunes to making a round of pool free, adding a POS system, and updating the griddle, dishwasher and walk-in fridge. Essentially, operational shifts that will keep the iconic dive a dive but…a more reliable one.

“I just want to go to Montero’s and know that it’s going to be open, or I would like to be able to order a martini and know that it’s going to be good. And it’s not going to be a $25 martini, but I would like to just know that it’s going to be good. At the same time, I want to be able to drink shitty beer because I like shitty beer, and that’s where Montero’s excels.”