Nourishing the Body and Spirit: Fork and Plough

NOURISHING THE BODY & THE SPIRIT Fork and Plough

Despite the rise of supermarkets and impersonal digital grocery shopping, many still recall fondly weekly trips to the local grocery shop and butcher as intimate social events grounded in personal relationships and trust. While picking up ingredients to nourish loved ones around the dinner table, you might have a chance encounter with neighbors at the local grocery store that nourished the spirit. And if you had questions about produce or meat choices, you could ask the butcher or grocer directly for their trusted knowledge.

A contemporary dining experience that conjured that same nostalgic relationship with food centered on care, community, and trust was exactly what chef Shawn Kelly and his partners Roddy Pick and Chad Bishop of Greenbriar Farms envisioned for the Greenville’s Fork and Plough. After serving as the executive chef at Charleston’s upscale High Cotton, Shawn felt drawn to creating a more approachable dining experience with high quality, locally sourced, seasonal ingredients. Friends Roddy and Chad, owners of Greenbriar Farms, shared Shawn’s enthusiasm for high quality seasonal food made accessible to the community. In fact, Roddy and Chad had long been committed to using food as a practice of community engagement, hosting a back-porch music series on their farm which introduced attendees to a range of local foods and rotating local musicians. With their visions and passions aligned, together the three embarked on a new food journey. Once they found a location in the historic Overbrook neighborhood--a building that was fittingly a former grocery store--the elements began to fall slowly into place.

BEFORE

How the restauranteurs wanted patrons to feel in the space was always brilliantly clear: Fork and Plough was to be a community-centered, farm-to-table restaurant that possessed the same vibrant charge of a neighborhood market and local butcher. People from the neighborhood could choose to dine in or dine out and enjoy locally sourced, seasonal ingredients daily. A multigenerational experience, families and friends could meet at Fork & Plough for beer or YooHoos with their kids. Dynamic and fluid, one night at Fork & Plough might feature a crowd of folks with chatter and laughter abuzz in the air as they dine on delicious food while the next night might feature The Black Keys blasting on the sound system. With no digital screens to distract people from whom their fellow feasters, the vision for Fork and Plough not only included bringing people closer to local farms but also to each other.

Yet, how to design the space in a way that created a feeling both recognizable and distinct to Fork and Plough proved to be a multilayered challenge—and this is where LS3P came in. One of the first questions to arise was how to create a thoughtfully designed brand that captured the restaurant’s ethos without seeming too forced. The LS3P team created a concept presentation that featured an array of colors, ranging from a minimalist black-andwhite palette to a more flamboyant assortment of vivid colors. Together, Fork and Plough and LS3P ultimately selected a mid-century aesthetic with a palette of midnight blue and pistachio green with honey wood accents. The honey wood and pistachio green worked as nostalgic gestures to aesthetics of traditional grocery stores while the midnight blue helped maintain a fresh, crisp contemporary feel.

At 4000 SF, including a newly covered entry and dining porch, the space’s relatively small size also presented a challenge. The restaurant needed intimacy without feeling cramped. With four programs—a bar, dining area, butcher counter, and retail area—it would be easy for an area to become pinched or for the space overall to disorient newcomers who did not know where to begin. Here, the color palette along with the revised entry location and carefully designed flow patterns did additional work by visually opening the space. Further, the design decision to isolate the kitchen to an extension wing allowed free reign of one large volume as the dining area. Geometric relief pattern added interesting angles that effectively disrupted the static sense that can accompany rectangular spaces. Further, the tiles’ reflectivity helped animate the space by bouncing off the space’s angular contemporary six-light, brass accented chandeliers. To increase the ease of circulation, hard wood floors with accent stripes gently guide patrons in the space towards the point-of-sale (POS) counter from the newly relocated entry.

Once the design vision was established, budget and space constraints shaped the vision’s execution by offering an opportunity to embrace original elements from the space. Instead of spending additional money concealing kitchen equipment such as the butcher counter or coolers, the design team opted to embrace them as integral fixtures of the space. They painted the existing exposed building framing and ceiling with a consistent white finish, which made the space feel more cohesive, and the chef installed the tile himself.

The design team also offered creative, high-grade yet economically conscious options for furnishing the space. The design team emphasized the importance of having high quality furniture that did not break the budget, and found a vendor who would sell durable, commercial grade furniture directly to Fork and Plough. The chef assembled the furniture himself. For wall art, the design team facilitated partnerships between the restaurant and local galleries to feature art from local artists for sale.

In a nondescript, still developing area, it was important for Fork & Plough’s exterior to stand out while remaining budget friendly. The design team re-wrapped the exterior economically with horizontal slat wood for a design punch. The cedar wrapped storefront windows and entrances show off existing openings while complementing the honey wood. Further, large windows showcase the space in action and invite community drop in. A new covered porch, which helps the space gain real estate, draws the attention of pedestrians while providing enough buffer for patrons to maintain the intimacy of the space. Telescopic bar seating opens to the covered porch through an expansive multi-slide window, further connecting the indoors to the exterior.

Together, these design elements created a cost-effective exterior that had both a charming and inviting quality.

After a long but satisfying journey, Fork and Plough ultimately cohered in a delightful and organic way. Every day, the menu has impressive variety, ranging from a refreshing cucumber soup to a delicious fried guacamole. Some nights, you can traipse in and find Roddy and Chad bartending, modeling with patrons an atmosphere where you want to talk to people. The farmto-table restaurant even features special, curated events like Daddy-Daughter Date Night.

Grounded in the neighborhood’s downhome culture in an urban environment, Fork and Plough offers residents and visitors a laid back dining experience that embraces and nourishes the body and spirit.

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