Sweetwater News and a Bern’s Legend Ends?
September 24th, 2007 by Brian Ries in Food Sources, RestaurantsSweetwater Organic Farm, the subscription based CSA tucked into a residential neighborhood in Tampa, has expanded into Clearwater.
The new farm is at Gateway Nursery, formerly a landscape plant grower, and is owned and operated by Pamela and Hank Sindlinger. Crops will be coming in this year, with about 40 full-year shares available (part-time shares can be had as well. According to Sweetwater’s Exec. Dir. Rick Martinez, they’ve sold about 60% of the shares.
Another interesting point I learned talking to him is that Sweetwater took over management of Bern’s Steakhouse’s famous farm plot on South Tampa. Sweetwater has long had a relationship with the restaurant, using some of Bern’s land for their own crops, but now the CSA runs the whole shebang. What does that mean for the legendary practice of forcing Bern’s waiter-trainees to till the soil and get their hands dirty? According to Bern’s Publicist Heather Sherer-Berkoff, they still do, but she’s checking to be sure. Expect an update in the next day or two.
October 1st, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Isn’t the plot in North Tampa? On a former landfill?
October 1st, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Did they also take over the Bern\\\’s \\
October 1st, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Okay, now why did the system remove part of my comment?
Regardless . . . .
Did they also take over management of Bern’s “farm” at Waters and Benjamin?
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
Oops, sorry, that was a slip of the hands. Yep, I was referring to the farm in North Tampa, not South Tampa.