| C U L T I V A T I N G ... T H E ... G O O D ... L I F E |
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In 1973, Bill and Lola Zimmerman purchased what had been an old dairy farm outside of rural Fall city, about 30 miles east of Seattle.
In the spring of 1974, Lola found herself with some extra chive plants. One day she parked them roadside in a old wheelbarrow and posted a little handwritten sign "Herb Plants for Sale." People stopped to buy them. In the following years, Lola grew extra herbs on purpose. the nursery flourished. A little restaurant begins. In 1985, the Zimmerman's son Ron left his previous business, Early Winters, which had been the first company to introduce Gore-Tex products. With Carrie Van Dyck, his wife and partner, he joined The Herbfarm in 1986. That winter and spring they worked to remodel part of farm's home and garage into a charming little restaurant seating just 24 people. The educational luncheon program serving a 6-coursemeal opened on May 25, 1986. Ron was the chef in those early years and Carrie was the host. The Herbfarm received excellent reviews. There was never an empty seat. In 1990, Jerry Traunfeld, who had been a pastry chef with Jeremiah Tower at Stars in San Francisco and executive chef at the Alexis Hotel in Seattle, joined The Herbfarm as its new chef. Jerry brought his love for gardening and set about mastering the herbs. The restaurant's fame grew. As time went by it garnered coverage in nearly every national culinary magazine. In the early autumn of 1996, The Herbfarm built an addition which housed a spacious new kitchen, an underground wine cellar, and much-needed new dining space. On Monday night, January 6, 1997, Ron and Carrie were sitting down for dinner at a nearby restaurant. They were tired but grateful. After two weeks Mother Nature had relented. The wet snow that had crushed the greenhouses had melted. The power blackout that forced the cancellation of New Year's Eve Dinner was a recent memory. The nights of sleeping on the floor of The Herbfarm office, awakening every two hours to refuel the generator that was life support to the sumps in the flooding wine cellar, were over. Just as the hot food arrived, Carrie's cell phone let out a muffled ring in her purse. It was Lola Zimmerman. "Carrie, Carrie, come quick! The Herbfarm's on fire!" The road from ashes. The Herbfarm Restaurant and offices were a total loss that night. The fire made the nightly news and coverage continued for days. At first it seemed The Herbfarm would be able to rebuild the restaurant and add overnight accommodations at the farm. Months of almost daily meetings consumed Ron and Carrie's time. Jerry worked on the manuscript for The Herbfarm Cookbook. Ron and Carrie believed that the building permits were "just a few weeks away." Engineers, consultants, inspectors and attorneys came and went. The months became a year. One year turned into two. In 1999 Ron and Carrie approached Tom and Anne-Marie Hedges of Hedges Cellars, a top Washington wine producer with a lovely tasting room in Issaquah. For the next two years , the restaurant operated within the winery while work commenced on the new Herbfarm Restaurant in the Sammammish Valley, 20 minutes from the original site. During this time Bill and Lola raised fruit and vegetables for the restaurant. Bill took ill, but lived long enough to see the new restaurant almost completed. He was buried with a sprinkling of ashes from the original restaurant. On May 25, 2001 --15 years after the original opening, The Herbfarm Restaurant dedicated its new quarters. More than four years had passed since the fire, but the core staff remained intact. The new building included pieces from the original farm. Hamlet the pig took up residence in his new home, surrounded by gardens. The farm tractor moved to acreage just down the valley. Here it broke soil on a new chapter in The Herbfarm's history, continuing the relationship with the earth that had begun with Lola's chives 27 years before.
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