Category Archives: Local gardens

by Adam Sachs    photos by Suzi Migdol

Crave reported last week about the vote that prohibited Garden Café from serving alcohol. In light of all the recent press on this issue, I thought it time to focus on Garden Café on its own terms. They have been around nearly nine years, and established themselves as a neighborhood institution with an identity that goes much deeper than the ability to serve beer and wine. I sat down with owner Dale Wootton and his son Mark to learn about the past, present, and future of Garden Café.

Dale Wootton purchased the building in 1991, thinking it was a “diamond in the rough” with an area that looked conducive to his favorite pastime of gardening. “I had all these plans [with the building] for what real estate appraisers call the highest and best use for land,” he said, “but I decided that I wanted to do what I wanted to do and not the highest invest use. So that’s why we came up with the idea of a garden, a peaceful relaxing place, where if you need some basil, you run out here and pick it.”   Continue reading →