“This is an outlet that my wife and I want given our fine dining background,” said Patrick Van Voorhis, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Casey. “My goal is to create something that can be a special occasion restaurant for everyone.”
Credit: Natalie Jones
Credit: Natalie Jones
Finding each other through cooking
Patrick, who is originally from New York, didn’t think being a chef was a career option until his dad suggested checking out the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.
“I always held restaurant jobs, and I come from a big Italian family,” Patrick said. “It’s just like where you live is in the kitchen ... and every holiday, every big celebration, everything was spent over a dinner table, more or less.”
Casey, who grew up about an hour north of Dayton in Versailles, started studying aerospace engineering in Florida after high school, but was always fascinated and fantasized about the world of food and cooking.
They started dating just before their eight-month externships at the Culinary Institute of America, for which they flew to opposite ends of the country. Patrick was in West Virginia, and Casey was in California.
“I finished like a week before she did on the externship and she was going to drive from California back to New York by herself,” Patrick said.
He ended up flying out to California to drive back to New York with her. They returned to school and graduated with honors in the culinary program.
Upon graduation, they remained at the school for a year to work as Managers in Training, where they assisted in teaching classes to home cooks.
“We kind of fell in love with the cooking class side of things as well, which is one of the reasons why we do that at Grist,” Patrick said.
From California to Dayton
At that point, they both wanted to work in Michelin-starred restaurants, so they packed up Casey’s 2005 Hyundai Tucson with everything they owned and went to San Francisco, CA
“We got into some great Michelin-starred restaurants and just worked a lot — 90 to 120 hour weeks,“ Patrick said. ”It was a lot, but we learned a tremendous amount. We made some great connections and then after that San Francisco stretch, we actually got offered a job for the two of us to run a restaurant together, actually two restaurants.“
One of those restaurants was Spoonbar in Healdsburg, CA where they focused on handmade pasta and refined, but relatable cuisine.
Patrick recalled rolling pasta one day when Casey was doing prep work next to him and he had made a comment that he would love to make fresh pasta every day and sell it to other places.
“In my wife’s fashion, she just took that entire idea and then like three months later, we were packing a car and here we go,” Patrick said.
The couple moved to the Dayton region in 2018 after living in California for almost eight years.
The creation of Grist
Patrick recalled the first time they served their fresh pasta to the Dayton community at Fleur De Fete, Dayton’s largest wine and food festival.
“My brother-in-law had signed us up to do it, and we weren’t even living here yet,” Patrick said. “We set up a wooden table (in his sister-in-law’s garage) and just made 500 portions of pasta and that was our very first thing we ever produced as Grist.”
Grist originally opened in the District Provisions building at 521 Wayne Ave. in 2018 offering pop-up dinners and take home breads, pastas and other specialty items.
“When Covid happened, we saw kind of a niche for making sandwiches for people,” Patrick said. “We started making like 20 sandwiches a day, but on my wife’s fresh focaccia bread that she was baking, and they started selling out like crazy.”
That’s when they started thinking about expanding their business.
In 2021, Grist moved to its current location at 46 W. Fifth St. offering sandwiches and classic pastas for lunch, as well as a retail portion.
“Everybody that comes in, I hope feels like they’re kind of stepping into our house,” Patrick said. “We wanted the quality of what we do to be on a daily basis, but for it to feel very approachable. The way my wife designed it, it’s very warm. I think it’s inviting.”
The restaurant added dinner service in 2022 after customers kept asking why they didn’t offer it. Patrick described the dinner menu as ”a little bit more adventurous" when it comes to pasta.
The space isn’t huge and only seats about 40 people. The restaurant is non traditional because of the way their business grew. For example, Grist doesn’t have the appropriate hood system to have equipment like fryers.
The owners' perfect triangle
“We’re very fortunate in what we produce,” Patrick said. “Right now, we are very much at capacity.”
Before they decided to open a new restaurant, they were close to signing papers on a production space to scale up their bread and pasta production. Instead, they met with Chef Dana Downs of Roost and officially took over the new space on Feb. 1.
Patrick said he and Casey have always talked about their “perfect triangle” in the restaurant world. That includes having a casual dining experience like Grist, a fine dining establishment like Resonant and wholesale production.
“Our goal is to get this where we want it probably over the next year and then re-explore the wholesale production side,” Patrick said.
Grist currently supplies establishments such as Tony & Pete’s, Moraine Country Club, Bernstein’s Catering and Sunrise Cafe with their products.
They also have four different types of pastas and sauces at all three Dorothy Lane Market locations.
What to expect at Resonant
Customers can expect a five, seven or nine course tasting menu, which will vary, at the new restaurant.
“If you come in just to sit down and have dinner, it will be at least three courses you’re committing to,” Patrick said. “You’ll have the ability to choose your first course option, your entree option, but from a selection of things.”
The restaurant will have bites that everyone will get from the kitchen that’s not necessarily listed on the menu, but more so just a part of the experience. There will also be a bar featuring a separate food menu.
The owners are leaving the cuisine somewhat undefined for the moment, but confirmed they will be sourcing the very best ingredients.
“I have plans to put some things on the menu with liquid nitrogen,” Patrick said. “For me, it is a fun and creative thing that I miss doing and if nothing else, I’m just excited to put that out there, and hopefully it will be accepted and received.”
Can Dayton support a fine dining concept?
When asked if Dayton can support a fine dining concept, Patrick said based on the demand that they’ve had for their specialty dinners at Grist, he believes the city can.
“We’re going to deliver an experience that will hit that mark — whether or not it can be supported I think time will tell. I think there is certainly a niche for it and I just hope that we can deliver it. That’s more my concern," Patrick said. “I want to make sure that we’re going to set a bar for that experience and then we’re going to deliver beyond that to keep it going.”
He described Dayton as very trusting, but said they have one shot to deliver this high-end experience and want to make sure they get it right.
A rite of passage
For them, coming back to the Oregon District is kind of a “full circle” moment.
“I remember when we were talking about coming here originally, before Grist, everybody was like, ”oh the Oregon district is the downtown area,“” Patrick said. “To officially have a space here now, we kind of look at that as like a little badge of honor, a little rite of passage.”
Earlier this month, Corner Kitchen announced that it would close its doors in the Oregon District after business on March 9. This was followed by Mike’s Vintage Toys announcing its closure set for April 13.
“I’m not naive. I’m not going to say that it isn’t concerning, but we got told when we moved into the space we’re in (for) Grist that it would never work and that we’re on an island out there, and we’re fortunate enough to have kind of the complete opposite,” Patrick said. “I think people are excited and enticed by something new and also something that is memorable. If we can hit that mark and we can create that, I think everybody will hopefully support that because that’s what happened at Grist.”
He said their customers at Grist became family in a very short amount of time.
“Anything new for downtown is good,” Patrick said. “We’re going to give it everything we have, I’ll tell you that.”
Something he is impressed with in Dayton is how tight-knit the business community is.
“It’s really truly incredible to be a part of because that’s not something you see in big cities,” Patrick said. “I think out here everybody is the same size fish, trying to increase the size of this pond, so to speak.”
Patrick and Casey are working closely with the owners of the building, Michael and Ashlea Sogard, on renovations. They are currently waiting on the city to move forward.
The name of the restaurant is their philosophy for the experience they hope to provide.
“We want the experience to resonant with people,” Patrick said.
MORE DETAILS
Resonant is expected to open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday. The owners are in talks about getting free valet service for guests.
Grist will continue normal operations.
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