Green Valley Hospitality: Quality Dining in the Quiet Corner

When family ties lured Brian Jesserun home from Europe and his brother Barry Jesserun home after a sojourn on the West Coast, they brought together their complementary skills with a new vision for the hospitality business.

Thirty-two years ago, Brian and Barry opened the Vanilla Bean Café in Pomfret with their sister Eileen because “We wanted something that wasn’t here,” Barry recalls. The café thrives, now as one of their four distinctive restaurants in northeast Connecticut’s Last Green Valley. They have taken an incremental approach to growth. Now with Green Valley Hospitality as their management and marketing company, creativity flourishes in all aspects of the venues, in the kitchens, the food, and also in staff development. Attention to effective management and proper accounting procedures and standard practices keeps the group fiscally viable, able to grow, and not coincidentally, come out the other side of the pandemic. Barry (CEO/CFO) and Brian (CQO) take their roles in the business very seriously (Eileen sold her shares back to the company and is no longer involved. James Martin and Steve Smith are longtime managing partners).

Barry is typically at the Vanilla Bean Café first thing in the morning, “Maintaining the standard, he says.” When he stops at 85 Main, a building they own, it’s to check the restaurant and attend to whatever is necessary from general maintenance to maintaining landlord-tenant relationships. When you are dining at Dog Lane Café or Fenton River Grill, one of the brothers is frequently in the house. “Brian and I do what we are supposed to be doing,” meaning the continual on-line maintenance, helping to manage labor and food costs, looking for inefficiencies and waste, and supporting the management and staff. “The partnerships are playing to our strengths—and those strengths barely overlap.”

The shared ethos of hospitality includes attention to their staff. The goal is to have a friendly and rewarding environment for staff and a welcoming and enjoyable experience for each guest. Guests can count on prompt, friendly, and courteous service. The positive energy of the staff complements the dining experience at each restaurant, and again—not a coincidence--taking good care of staff is part of “our longstanding reputation, so we are not having difficulty finding employees. While we’re well staffed, our job is to look to the future and build a strong bench.”

Each manager is encouraged to be creative in sourcing and preparing food and drinks, along with responsibility for overall daily operations, including the hiring, cleanliness, and quality of the food.

“When we opened the Vanilla Bean Café in 1989, we began our practice of purchasing from local farms whenever possible. We featured hand-prepared food and offered outdoor seating,” recalls Barry. A café such as this was a novelty on the East Coast. It quickly filled “a gap between pizza and the top end, and the Bean just grew.” He brought the concept of eating fresh and local home from his travels. “We got on that early with many options. With United Natural Foods nearby in Dayville as a supplier, gluten-free foods were readily available from the start. “Plus, since most everything is made from scratch--breakfast, lunch, dinner, and daily specials--we know what’s in the food and we can accommodate particular requests. We are trusted for our food and that appears to have translated into trust in our thoughtful safety protocols.”

“With most everything made from scratch--breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desserts--we know what’s in the food and we can accommodate requests.”

The menu at the Vanilla Bean Café has evolved over the years into more substantial cuisine. House-made soups remain popular items and requests from regular customers lead to additions. Chili is a source of pride, appearing as “Award Winning Chili” in the national cookbook, Killer Chili. Chowder and tomato Florentine are always on the menu. Barry is really particular about the clam chowder. “I want the clams to come through, so our chowder is a cross between New England and Rhode Island, with a bit more clam-forward flavor.”

Evening meals were introduced from at the Bean Wednesday through the weekend but “people really wanted more for dinner, and that led us to create 85 Main, says Barry.” The search for an indoor restaurant with a full bar took a couple of years, before settling on a storefront in Putnam. This find coincided with the availability of chef James Martin, who had begun his career at the Vanilla Bean Café before going on to learn with the noted Chris Schlesinger and open Back Eddy in Westport. James developed a plan for his own restaurant before deciding to return home to northeast Connecticut. With a chef and the space, Barry and Brian formed a partnership with James to open 85 Main as “an urban-style restaurant in a small town.” This venue solves the “driving home from Providence problem” for anyone seeking a quality dinner close to home. Looking back, James says it was a stretch, although a plus to follow another restaurant into that location. “Putnam is a good fit for a menu filled with quality, hand-prepared fresh ingredients. Early on, we were able to work with the town to obtain parking spaces to construct a patio for outdoor dining.”

“We pride ourselves on our vendors,” says James. We have forged strong relationships with farms, fishing organizations, and shellfish alliances. Fresh fish and seafood is delivered daily from Point Judith, RI. 85 Main’s appealing static menu is an assurance of what to expect, but for many others, it’s the creative daily special entrees and appetizers. Says James, “We go out of our way to source products we want to work with.”

Launching 85 Main is only half the GVH story: Barry and Brian continued to field requests from regulars from Mansfield and Storrs who drove to Pomfret or Putnam to dine about a place in their neighborhood.

Once again, the next move took patience. “It wasn’t easy to find a commercial property with a patio that was the right size and not too far from campus.” They joined the Downtown Partnership in 2003-2004, then five years before negotiating a letter of intent, and three more before signing a lease. Dog Lane Café finally opened in 2012. Also, when asked how they got such a good corner location, Barry responds, “by paying attention from the beginning and trusting the process.”

To create venues that belong in a college town, Barry and Brian work with Steve Smith, managing partner first at Dog Lane Café and now Fenton River Grill. With more than twenty years of experience as a chef and front-of-house manager, including start-ups in the Mystic area, he understands that “building relationships with vendors, staff, and customers is important and takes time.”

Dog Lane Café is a European style café designed for year-round residents and professionals doing business in and around Storrs and not just for students. The “café dog is not UCONN’S husky. It is our dog,” Barry emphasizes.

The menu, similar to the Vanilla Bean Café’s, is adapted to its clientele. Features include a “lot of soup--six soups and three chilis each day” – and a selection of grilled cheese sandwiches. Fruit and vegetable smoothies, a healthy meal substitute for the student population, uses such local ingredients as beets, blueberries, kale, honey, and Mountain Dairy products. Not to mention bananas, mango, almond milk, peanut butter, lime juice and cinnamon!

Demand for a sit-down restaurant in Mansfield—with appetizers, wine and cheese plates, more comfort, a place to dine on special occasions—led to Fenton River Grill. It opened in April 2018, again after a multiyear search for the right location. The décor blends Old World industrial with modern comfort that Barry describes as “a steampunk twist on industrial and old materials.” The carved wood heron on the dining patio looks as if it has always been there.

The Fenton River Grill menu is an eclectic mix with a daily list of chef-created shareable plates. Sandwiches, burgers, salads, healthy choices, and eight entrées round out the daily offerings. Intentionally not as high end an offer as 85 Main, specials pull from local vendors to create something fun and different. This includes day-boat scallops from Point Judith and local produce such as eggplant, greens, squash, tomatoes, and potatoes. The bar has a reputation for its craft cocktails and twenty local beers on tap at any given time. The chef’s creative flair also showcases the spirits. The Stolen Espresso martini (made with espresso stolen from Dog Lane Café) is popular, as is the Jalapeño Pineapple Margarita made with house-infused Exotico Reposado Tequila and fresh squeezed lime juice. “We take a lot of pride in their preparation. Measured pours ensure a well-crafted cocktail that will always taste the same,” observes Steve.

Barry and Brian have created a restaurant group that has attracted a leadership team of top-notch people who focus on quality in food, preparation, employees, management, environment, fiscal responsibility and the overall offer of hospitality.  And now, read about it in Barry’s book The Drunkard’s Path: Self-Help and Guidance for Your Career Path. Barry notes that the release of the publication” is the culmination of four decades in hospitality and two years of writing to help me become a better manager of our people and our business.”

Green Valley Hospitality restaurants are in Mansfield, Pomfret, Putnam, and Storrs. Links to each venue, online ordering of food, and Barry’s book at greenvalleyhospitality.com

FENTON RIVER GRILL