By Annette Hinkle
For those searching for a quick chew or a piece of consolation food, a new eating alternative has opened just west of Southampton Village. Raindrop’s Café, a farm-to-desk restaurant owned and operated by individuals of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, celebrated its reliable establishment 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 and the top roaster at Raindrop’s Coffee, which is produced on-site on the rear of the construction. Deana Smith serves as the restaurant’s operational manager, handling all the front of residence operations. Finally, Samantha Sosa is a culinary professional within the kitchen. It’s there that she whips up small bites alongside 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 during a recent visit 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. So we preserve it conventionally and have introduced our recipes.”
Among the unique offerings on the menu is a venison Philly cheesesteak, inspired using the fact that Ms. Smith once 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 omelets, 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 in the making,” stated Mr. Polite, who is involved in the café commercial enterprise after having labored as a police officer for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe in Connecticut and attending law school for a year.
“I became making plans to move back to high school, then I was given into horticulture and the technology at the back of coffee roasting,” defined Mr. Polite, who uses the same 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 result of their 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 construction. While developing domestically sourced, excellent dishes is the primary focus at the brand new restaurant, he notes that Raindrop’s Café is, in the long run, about making connections with a network.
