The log cabin-style building on Arkansas 59 is bright and shiny and looks like it might be new construction.
Don’t be misled. There’s nothing new about The Wooden Spoon in Gentry.
The restaurant has been in business for more than a decade, and the “new” building was resurrected from a pre-1870 horse barn, dismantled and moved from Michigan about a year and a half ago.
Walking in to the dining room feels much like stepping into a simpler time. The huge barn beams, all fashioned with an ax, tower above the central fireplace and country-kitchen wooden tables, each topped with a simple vase of flowers.
Most of the staff members are simply dressed, too, in the style of the Mennonite community from which they come. Being Mennonite is not a requirement to work there, owner Jane Klassen says, but “we like people who know how to work and get along with other people.”
The Wooden Spoon started as a suggestion to another Gentry businessman: “The community needs a sandwich shop.” The Klassens - Jane from Kansas and Cam from British Columbia - agreed to oversee the operation if he’d build a spot for it. When the manager moved on, “we talked back and forth about staying in the business or selling it,” she says, “but we’ve gotten to know so many people and have such good help, it’s just fun now.”
New dishes come and go on the menu, but all of them are based on tried-and-true recipes from “Mom and Grandma” or other cooks in the family orcommunity. “It’s just comfort food,” Klassen adds. “We don’t have anything fancy.”
The lunch menu includes sandwiches, salads, soups and a daily special - barbecued meatballs on a recent Friday.
Chicken salad, a recipe borrowed from Jane Klassen’s sister, who runs a restaurant in northern Georgia, has been the most popular sandwich from Day 1, she says. The meatloaf sandwich was suggested by a customer; Klassen wasn’t convinced, but like other suggestions, it earned its place on the menu.
Sandwich options also include three-cheese steak - grilled steak on French bread topped with Swiss, Parmesan and blue cheeses - grilled portabella mushroom and a traditional club. Each is served with a choice of sides - potato salad, pasta salad or baked beans - with prices ranging from $7 to $9.
Salads - strawberry, Santa Fe, grilled or crispy chicken, apple-walnut - also run $7 to $9, and a bowl of baked potato soup or soup of the day is $4.99.
Klassen and her husband both strongly suggest saving room for dessert; it’s the “bright spot” and comes in portions generous enough for two. There’s a cobbler of theday, pies like chocolate-peanut butter, dutch apple, banana and coconut, cakes like German chocolate and carrot and bread pudding served with butter cream sauce. Prices run around $2.99 to $5.99 - or you can choose cookies or a whole pie at the checkout.
One of the things that makes The Wooden Spoon unusual- in addition to a 150-year-old barn, Mennonite servers and old-fashioned home cooking - is the hours it keeps. The restaurant is open for lunch from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Monday through Friday and for dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday.
Period.
So diners line up early Friday evening for fried catfish, servedevery week, or ribs on the first Friday; grilled beef tips on the second Friday; smoked brisket and chicken fried chicken on the third Friday; and grilled ribeye on the fourth Friday.
“We have another business, so we decided we’d run the restaurant, not let the restaurant run us,” Jane Klassen says. “It’s worked out this way.”
Whats Up, Pages 22 on 02/15/2013