Any new customer at Sowers Harvest Café might feel a certain measure of curiosity. After all, this downtown State College restaurant has somehow attracted a growing clientele while ignoring most of the strategies or shortcuts used by other eateries.
The café just marked its 10th anniversary in early September, and it’s experiencing out-the-door lines of customers during peak breakfast and lunch periods. Little, if any, of that business, however, results from advertising or physical visibility. Not only does Sowers’ owner shy away from most advertising, but the café’s very location at 421 E. Beaver Avenue is obscured by surrounding buildings.
Online orders are also not a part of the recipe for Sowers’ steady pattern of growth. So how does this little gem of a restaurant continue to enjoy record-breaking levels of sales?
It’s absolutely not because of e-commerce. Owner Bryant Martin disdains online orders for a business like his, believing it’s part of the reason for the mental health crisis in the restaurant industry. “It’s a double whammy,” he says, “when there’s a line at your counter and people are also ordering online. It puts high stress upon your workers.”
No, it seems that Sowers’ upward slope of revenue has resulted from word-of-mouth endorsements that result from serving fresh food in a welcoming environment.
And Martin adds one more component. “Well,” says the native of Blair County, “I think that the fact that we’re still here 10 years later is a blessing from the Lord. I really feel that way. A lot of restaurants come and go here. We’ve seen that all around us.”
THREE KEYS
According to Martin, “Three things meet here at Sowers: healthy cuisine and ethically based coffee, a peaceful space, and engaging conversation and community.” And as someone who’s enjoyed four or five recent visits to the café just off Beaver Avenue, I have personally experienced those three key factors.
Yes, the menu is fabulous in an eclectic sort of way. No other restaurant that I know can provide flavorful entrees from around the world (“Chipotle Chicken Bacon Ranch Grillatilla,” “Hawaiian BBQ Salad,” or “Spicy Mango Sriracha Panini”) that are served by local folks in the modest attire of Anabaptist believers.
And yes, there is a certain serenity about the place. Says Jeanette Zook, the assistant manager for Sowers, “I often hear the people who come in here talking about the peace and joy they feel in the atmosphere here. I like knowing that the people who come here enjoy their experience. We try to treat everyone with dignity and value.”
But the most noticeable factor—and most impressive to me—is the unique mix of people who comprise the café’s clientele. I first visited the little café at the invitation of a neighbor who does research at Penn State and is from China. During that visit, I also saw Bo Nickal, a former Penn State wrestling legend who is now a UFC fighter and someone who certainly cares about nutritious foods.
During a later visit, I ran into several friends from Indonesia who were celebrating the birthday of a fellow international graduate student. After taking their group photo and bidding them adieu, I bumped into Heather Holleman, a university professor and friend who later became the subject of one of my columns.
Then, just last week, while at Sowers to interview Martin and the restaurant’s manager, Brian Horst, I walked by Kyle Dake, a wrestling legend from Cornell who now lives here and has been associated with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club. Just a few minutes later, I saw Penn State wrestling legend Aaron Brooks and asked him about the café’s attraction to grapplers. “It’s a place of fellowship,” said Brooks. “A lot of guys on the wrestling team come here to catch up with each other. And the Spirit’s here…there are not so many places you can feel that.”
So who frequents Sowers Harvest Café? Well, it’s the only Happy Valley restaurant that I know where world class wrestlers (Mitchell Mesenbrink is another patron) regularly dine beside other Penn State athletes, domestic and international students, university faculty members and plain old townies like me.
WELCOMING ATMOSPHERE
Sowers is known for making people feel at home, but Martin says that wasn’t as much of an emphasis in the café’s early days. Back then, he says, “We were busy and just trying to keep our heads above water. But we soon discovered that our guests felt like this was a welcoming atmosphere. It was just basic hospitality, but people started giving us positive reviews. And maybe I should say people were also very forgiving. But it showed me that in the restaurant experience, basic kindness is a lot better than what a lot of people give their guests.”
These days, however, the well-established team at Sowers can afford to be more intentional about welcoming their guests. “When people come here, we want them to feel noticed and cared for,” says Horst. “So we always say, ‘Welcome to Sowers.’ And we take their names at the register (to match food orders to the appropriate customers) so that helps us learn their names. So with repeat customers, we know them by name from the time they walk into our line of view until they’ve been taken care of.”
The result, of course, is a heightened sense of community that makes me start to hum the old theme song from “Cheers.” Says Zook, “I feel we do well with using people’s names and they appreciate that. Some of them are surprised when we remember their names…their faces light up.”
As for the café’s international guests, they clearly feel at home. Not only has the Sowers menu been built to have a broad appeal, but the staff members extend a welcome to those from other lands. “The world flows through our café,” notes Martin. “It’s beautiful….it’s glorious. We’re here to serve our guests with the understanding that every human is made in the image of God—Imago Dei.”
TRULY FRESH FOOD
Few restaurants go to the trouble to provide foods as fresh as those served at Sowers. “Fresh food just stands out,” says Martin. “But there’s very little rocket science in this—fresh food means work. There are onions that need to be chopped every day, peppers to be chopped, strawberries washed and cut. It’s so easy to buy chopped frozen stuff; that’s what everyone does. But it’s not as tasty and maybe not as healthy.”
And how about your eggs, gentlemen? I’m pretty sure you don’t buy them pre-cracked in some big carton or tub like other restaurants.
“We get our eggs right from the Amish farmer in Belleville,” says Martin, “and we crack these eggs fresh every day.”
“We crack them ahead of time in the morning,” adds Horst. “Our grill cook will crack maybe 30 to 40 dozen every morning.”
Of all the freshly prepared foods at Sowers, soft pretzels are the signature item. Available in four flavors (original, sour cream and onion, garlic parmesan and cinnamon sugar), these pretzels are made from scratch each day. From my experience, I’d say you can’t do better for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up than a Sowers soft pretzel with a cup of coffee made from Sowers’ roasted beans. That combo won’t work for the late afternoon, however, since the café is only open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.
As for other popular items, Martin says that anything with chipotle flavoring is in demand, and the Chipotle Chicken Bacon Ranch Panini is a big hit. Meanwhile, Sowers’ burgers are also extremely popular—especially with Arab students—but they are only available on Thursdays.
ANABAPTIST ROOTS
Customers who notice the head coverings worn by Sowers’ female employees often think the business is affiliated with the Amish. Not so. Some of the workers are part of “Followers of Jesus Church,” a State College area body that is non-denominational but embraces some of the same Anabaptist distinctives that are followed by Amish (such as non-resistance to an enemy).
Martin says he and his wife, Lynelle, moved to Happy Valley just to be part of the church. Later, after finding an appropriate space to lease, they decided to open Sowers Harvest Café. The enterprise is truly a partnership between them since, according to Martin, “My wife is the financial brain behind this.”
And the café is also an expression of the church, according to Martin. “It’s a business where we’re making a living, but we’re also using it to enrich the lives of others beyond just selling them a product.”
Although the restaurant is solely owned by Bryant and Lynelle (they have seven children), the facility sometimes functions as a downtown location for the church—especially from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday evenings. “Well of Life” is the name of the church’s weekly outreach gathering that takes place then.
“We’re open from 6 to 8,” says Martin, “and we have free coffee, tea and snacks. We have hymn sings, people talk about their culture, and we have relaxed roundtable conversations about Jesus and the historic faith.”
UNIVERSAL NEEDS
That name, “Well of Life,” was chosen out of a desire to connect the culture of the Bible with today’s world. “In Bible times,” says Martin, “the village well was the place where the community gathered and talked, and the town’s news was spread. But why did people come to the well? It was because everyone needed water. So with Sowers, if you want to intersect with people you need to find the crossroad of their needs, and everyone needs food. So that’s the well that draws them in.
“We’re not trying to reach just one particular sector or demographic of people. Everyone’s blood runs red and everyone’s stomach gets hungry. The common need is food, and it draws us together. So we’re meeting a need that every single human being has, and that is a good meal with good food and a hot drink. And beyond that, a listening ear and a heart that cares. Because even more than food and hot drink, people want to be noticed. They want to be honored. We can offer that with our hospitality.”
