Fabulous French onion soup, a passion for pleasing guests and decades of combined restaurant experience are served up daily at a Geauga County landmark – The Brown Barn Tavern in Fowlers Mill.
Fabulous French onion soup, a passion for pleasing guests and decades of combined restaurant experience are served up daily at a Geauga County landmark – The Brown Barn Tavern in Fowlers Mill.
The familiar restaurant at the foot of Alpine Valley Ski Resort on U.S. Route 322 in Munson Township was renamed Brown Barn Tavern when two area families purchased the Brown Barn Brew and Que in July.
Jackie Sas was working for the former owner when she and her husband, Marco Stanton, were asked if they would like to run the operation.
Since he had worked for years as a manager at Burntwood Tavern in Chagrin Falls, Stanton was confident in their ability to operate an independent restaurant. Although it seemed like the Brew and Que offer had come out of left field, he decided to leave Burntwood, a chain of restaurants in and around Cleveland, and take the position of operating manager.
It was not an easy decision.
“I’d been with Burntwood a long time. It was very emotional,” Stanton said. “I was very attached to the restaurant.”
Five weeks later, he learned the Brew and Que would be closing its doors July 6, but the owner was willing to sell the business to Stanton and Sas.
One reason Stanton decided to go to work for Brew and Que was because he appreciated the structure. Besides an impressive bar on the first floor, tall-chair seating in the bar area and a comfortable dining room, there is a private banquet area in the upstairs loft for large parties and the kitchen is set up to cater group meals.
“I was in awe of the building,” Stanton said.
Originally a furniture store, then a restaurant, the spacious structure was vacant for nine years before the Brew and Que business owner renovated the interior and the property owner, Payne and Payne, updated the exterior, Stanton said, adding he thinks it was built in the late 1960s.
Stanton worked out a deal with neighbors Mike and Eric Payne and the deal was done.
During the transition, he contacted a coworker, Jim Janke, who is a certified chef from the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute in Pittsburgh.
Janke said his first job out of high school was busing tables at the former Fowlers Mill Inn and Tavern.
Stanton can pinch hit in the kitchen, but he doesn’t consider himself a chef.
“You have to have real talent to be a chef,” he chuckled.
Janke spent 12 years at the Raintree Restaurant in Chagrin Falls, then five years at Burntwood, where he worked with Stanton.
Janke and his family agreed to invest, adding his wife, Emily, has experience in food service at country clubs, hotels and in the catering business.
The tavern is part of a dream the Jankes had for years, he said.
“Emily and I used to drive past it and say, ‘Someday we’re going to own this,’” Janke recalled.
The four are confident they have the experience and passion it takes to make the Brown Barn Tavern a winner.
“We know the dynamic and what it takes to run a successful restaurant,” Stanton said. “It takes a lot of effort and no days off. But we all have a passion for exceeding our guests’ expectations.”
Like all good restaurants, success starts in the kitchen, where Janke plates meals that are almost entirely from scratch, he said.
The menu — which includes nine entrees, nine sandwiches, seven salads and eight appetizers, plus sides — aims to give guests high quality meals.
Sas manages the bar, which offers 12 craft beers on tap, red and white wine by the bottle and glass, and 11 signature cocktails with imaginative names like Fowlers Rum and the Barn Mule.
“If you have a small menu, you can execute it really, really well,” Stanton said, adding, in their experience, high standards in the kitchen will ensure repeat customers.
Before they could create culinary masterpieces, build a strong nucleus of guests or even open the doors, they had to hire staff, restock and navigate inspections and permits while turning the Brew and Que into the Brown Barn Tavern.
They got it done in 17 days and had a soft opening the end of July.
“We flipped the entire restaurant,” Stanton said, adding many of the 25 employees pitched in with everyone working hard and having fun.
Besides providing the community with a scenic dining venue and a place to celebrate with family and friends, Stanton said he and the Brown Barn Tavern staff want to connect with guests, visit for a few minutes when time allows and build relationships.
Some relationships are pre-built.
Stanton’s father, Jack Stanton, who lives in Newbury Township, insisted that if his son opened his own restaurant, there was one big requirement.
“Dad said, ‘You’ve got to have good soup,’” he said.
Every chef has a specialty and Janke is known far and wide for his French onion soup, Stanton said.
“Every single guest who has tried his French onion soup says, ‘That’s the best soup we’ve had in our lives,’” he said.
One senior guest who has traveled the world declared he’d never had better soup, Stanton said.
Owning a business is many things for the partners — hard work, collaboration, discovery and community — but Stanton sees the Brown Barn as an opportunity he couldn’t pass up and he credits his Burntwood experience with preparing him for this venture.
“I wouldn’t be here if not for those opportunities. We are very, very blessed to be here,” he said.
For hours, semi-monthly entertainment and a menu, visit https://brownbarntavern.com/ or call 440-279-4747.
