New restaurant in northern Door County offers adventurous, fun 'comfort food with a twist'

EPHRAIM - The name of Ephraim's newest restaurant is exactly what its proprietors want it to be — a fresh take on dining in Door County.

Open since July, Fresh Take 42 owners Asche Rider and Dave Reera hope to make their place just north of The Red Putter Mini Golf stand out from the many others on the Peninsula, from the actual food being served to the service and look.

"We picked the name because (the restaurant) is a little bit of a fresh take on restaurants," Rider said in an interview with the Advocate. "We try to work with fresh food, we want to buy from local farmers, local purveyors as much as possible."

Rider and Reera describe the items on Fresh Take 42's menu as "comfort food with a twist," using locally sourced ingredients as much as possible for their fresh, seasonal offerings. Also, an a la carte menu allows diners to mix and match proteins, vegetables, sauces and starches as desired and share with their fellow diners, which Rider said tries to create a somewhat adventurous food experience.

"We think food is fun, we think eating is an awesome experience," Rider said. "We need to nourish our bodies. Our menu tries to have fun with that."

Reera, a native of the Pacific Northwest with more than 25 years of experience as a restaurant cook and chef across the country, is the chef. Rider, who previously worked at Fred & Fuzzy's in Sister Bay and whose family had a cabin on Door County for years, runs the front end of the restaurant, but they work together to design the menu, Reera said. They plan to keep the restaurant open seasonally, until about the end of October, but Reera said they'll open for one or two weeks around Christmastime.

Reera said Fresh Take 42's menu doesn't necessarily fit one style of cuisine but instead is kind of a fusion of multiple cuisines and cultures, similar to what he experienced in the Pacific Northwest.

"There's more cultures in the Pacific Northwest, a lot of breweries, a lot of people growing food," Reera said. "You can go to the farmers market and get fresh ginger root and use it. I guess our food is all over the place. There's a little bit of Italian, a little bit of Asian."

Among the lunch items are sticky chicken with tempura-style coating and a housemade citrus teriyaki sauce, schnitz (a crispy beaded pork cutlet with apple-cabbage slaw and country gravy) and a veggie pita with housemade chickpea-yam fritters.

Dinner items currently on the menu include seared flatiron steak with parsnip puree, mizuna greens (using a slightly sweet Japanese mustard green) and chimichurri butter; pappardelle with "flatballs" (spatula-flattened meatballs), red sauce, arugula and green cheese; and yam shito, which has flash-fried shoshito peppers, crispy yams and mizuna greens with housemade ranch dressing.

Along with beer or wine, guests can drink housemade sodas in a variety of fruit flavors as well as cola, and creme brulee is available. The restaurant also offers a Mac Bar on Thursday nights, a Saturday night burger bar and fried chicken dinners on Sundays along with food and drink specials during happy hour (3 to 5 and 8 to 9 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays).

The interior of the building, which was home to Joe Jo's Pizza & Gelato for 14 years before previous owners Dick and Kathy Luther retired and sold it to Rider and Reera in July 2021, underwent extensive remodeling. Reera said the carpeting was 14 years old and there wasn't a subfloor.

Besides those, he and Rider wanted to match the restaurant's look with the themes of the menu — fresh, unique, yet comfortable. Reera worked with mills in the Pacific Northwest to get woods for bar tops and table tops.

"We wanted it to feel fresh ... wanted it to be warm and inviting," Rider said. "We wanted it to be an extension of the food we're eating."

"We wanted to create a space you enjoy being in," Reera said.

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After Rider and Reera bought the former Joe Jo's last summer, they reopened it in September and October as Joe Jo's 2.0, offering a mixed menu of Joe Jo's popular thin-crust pizza with some of their own items, like house-made eggrolls, kale salad and sticky chicken. Rider said the two-month run wasn't exactly a trial period for what she and Reera were hoping to do.

"With the time required for a complete rebrand, especially including a full remodel, we made the choice to dive in," Rider said. "I don't think I'd call it a trial run so much as doing what made the most sense from an operational perspective. For example, changing the name on the sign on the road is a multi-month process.

"The biggest takeaway was running a restaurant with two people is really challenging."

One big challenge Rider and Reera know they face is that this is a tough time in which to operate almost any restaurant, much less open a new one. Staff shortages and supply chain problems since the COVID-19 pandemic struck the country in early 2020 have seen many establishments close or shrink their menus and hours of operation. Plus, the dramatic rise of the inflation rate this year has meant some people are less likely than before to go out to eat for a better meal.

Reera said he's keeping his menu a bit on the smaller side because of that, but he has what he called "a team of J-1s (exchange student visa workers) who are rock stars" to help on the staffing side.

"It's been challenging," Reera said. "Not a lot of diners want to spend a lot of money because a tank of gas is so expensive. We'd rather have a small menu and be a little less busy and produce good food than be slammed and produce mediocre food."

The result of all their efforts is a restaurant that is almost exactly what Rider and Reera were hoping to establish in Door County, Rider said.

"It's pretty close to what we were envisioning," she said. "We made some minor adjustments as we kinda got a feel for what folks in Door County are looking for."

FYI

Fresh Take 42 is at 10420 Water St. (State 42), Ephraim. It currently is open from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays; 3 to 9 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays; and 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays (full dinner menu served until 9). For menu and hours updates or more information, call 920-854-3232 or visit freshtake42.com.

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-741-7952, 920-562-8900 or cclough@doorcountyadvocate.com.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: New Door County restaurant offers 'comfort food with a twist'