A local business is expanding its footprint in serving food.
Farmfare, a catering business, will start serving ready-to-go meals from their location at 505 Highway 273 in Tracy starting on Wednesday, April 17.
Owner Katie Galloway and her staff of four full-time employees will be cooking both fresh and frozen options, with orders being taken online.
“For a little more than a cost of a fast food meal you can have a really nice meal to feed your family and in your house,” she said. “It will be the way you would want cook if you had time to do it.”
The first fresh meal wasn’t revealed yet, but expect some ‘tried and true’ favorites.
Farmfare will also have options such as dessert or frozen lasagna and pot pies that could picked up as well on Wednesday to get a few additional meals throughout the weekend.
Many of the ingredients will be sourced locally.
The business will be open from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. for pickup on Wednesday with the food on a first-come, first-serve basis. If the interest is there like Galloway expects, she hopes to add more days for pickup and more options in terms of food going forward.
“We will see where it takes us, but that is how we got to this point,” said Galloway, who has appeared on FOX4 to showcase her cooking skills.
While planning for the launch of the to-go food, the business was busy baking cookies and whipping up lemon curd for a tea party held on Sunday with the Platte City Friends of the Arts. It marked the second year in a row Farmfare catered the event.
The business started seven years ago and 2 ½ years ago moved to its current location. From there, the staff cooks for private events, corporate events and weddings.
It was a wedding, rather a wedding that was called off, that provided a glimpse of the interest in home-cooked meals. Farmfare had a lot of food after the cancelation and placed a post on a Facebook group asked if there was interest in buying portions of the meal.
Within 10 minutes people were at the door picking up food and within 45 minutes all the food made for the wedding was sold out.
The farm-to-table concept, from the family farm in Weston, has been a hit. The Galloways grow plenty of vegetables, while also having grass-fed cows, free-range chickens and dairy goats.
The family — husband John and one daughter, but now there are three — moved to Weston 12 years ago from Florida and what started out as a garden for vegetables on a 40 acre farm has turned into this business.
Each event has a custom menu and you could attend two different weddings in back-to-back weeks and see a completely different fare, as the business works with each client individually.
Galloway said she wanted to share the produce from the farm and she had always enjoyed cooking. Mix in a background as an event planner and an investment banker — her job before this venture — set the wheels in motion.
Looking back to her days at the University of Kansas, Galloway remembers throwing dinner parties in her ‘little bitty apartment and a little kitchen’ and the good reviews she got from fellow classmates in Lawrence, Kan.
“It was always bubbling, but I didn’t give it much thought,” she said. “I don’t think mom and dad would be happy with me dropping out as a finance and business major and going to culinary school. Had I known where I’d be now, maybe I’d do that.
“We have a lot of fun. Our business has steadily grown and I’m thankful for the awesome clients that help bring my dream into fruition.”