By Annette Hinkle
For those searching for a quick chew or a piece of consolation meals, a brand new eating alternative has opened just west of Southampton Village. Raindrop’s Café, a farm-to-desk restaurant owned and operated by using individuals of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, celebrated its reliable establishing over Memorial Day weekend with raffles, tastings and a craft marketplace.
But even a month earlier than its authentic beginning, fanatics of Raindrop’s fusion cuisine, which merges conventional Shinnecock fare with current favorites were already settling into the café’s secure confines in the white building positioned at the back of Raindrop’s Quick Stop on Montauk Highway.
Bryan Polite is the owner of the café as well as the top roaster at Raindrop’s Coffee, which is produced on site on the rear of the constructing. Deana Smith serves as the restaurant’s operational manager, handling all the the front of residence operations. Samantha Sosa is the culinary professional within the kitchen and it’s there that she whips up small bites along side soups, stews, sandwiches and salads, lots of which can be fused with the flavorings and sorts of traditional Native American fare—a menu reflective of the food that all three of them grew up with at the reservation.
“It’s fusion,” Ms. Smith explained throughout a recent go to to the café. “I used my grandmother’s recipes. She handed away years ago and lived on Heady Creek. She would make clam pie, we might move and get the clams ourselves and peel potatoes. We preserve it conventional and have introduced our personal recipes.”
Among the unique offerings on the menu is a venison Philly cheese steak, inspired by means of the fact that Ms. Smith as soon as lived in the City of Brotherly Love.
“It’s marinated venison with onions, mushrooms and cheese,” she said.
Other services at Raindrop’s consist of omlettes, French toast, sandwiches, Native nachos (frybread topped with venison, turkey, red meat or vegetarian chili, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and sour cream), succotash, samp (a corn-primarily based Native dish), seafood chowder, burgers (turkey or beef) and a “3 Sisters Carving Board” proposing grilled squash, green beans and corn chips with corn and bean hummus. The café may even serve Shinnecock-raised oysters in season.
“This has been two years inside the making,” stated Mr. Polite, who involves the café commercial enterprise after having labored as a police officer for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe in Connecticut and attending regulation faculty for a year.
“I became making plans to move back to high school, then I were given into horticulture and the technology at the back of coffee roasting,” defined Mr. Polite, who uses the equal roaster that has been in his own family since the mid-1990s. “I fell in love with getting my hands within the earth and watching the expression of human beings once they revel in the end result of your exertions.”
In addition to generating the espresso, which is packaged and offered at Raindrop’s Café, Mr. Polite has also operated an organic farm at the back of the constructing. While developing domestically sourced, excessive excellent dishes is the primary cognizance at the brand new restaurant, he notes that Raindrop’s Café is in the long run about making connections with network.
