Geneva emerging as food and drink destination

Rune Hilt and Giulietta Racciatti decided to roll the dice nine years ago.

After years of visiting the Finger Lakes while on vacation, they sold their Philadelphia home, bought a building in downtown Geneva and opened a farm-to-table gastropub in 2007. They loved the Finger Lakes and thought the wine industry was headed in the right direction.

“We’re either making the biggest mistake of our lives or getting in on the ground floor," they recall thinking.

At the time, roughly half of Geneva's downtown storefronts were vacant, and their building was on then-seedy Castle Street. Still, they weren't daunted.

“We were coming from Philadelphia and we worked for people who basically went into neighborhoods you wouldn’t want to go to,” Hilt said. “We saw that kind of plan and business model.”

At the time, The Red Dove Tavern was different from most of the other spots downtown. It focused on seasonal fare and most of the menu didn't take a trip through the deep fryer. It focused on craft beers instead of Coors Light and Bud Light. It served both calamari and octopus, which some of their earlier patrons pointed out were the same thing. (They're not.)

“In the beginning it was definitely a struggle and we didn’t know if we had made the right decision," Hilt said.

The Red Dove Tavern owners are finally seeing their gamble pay off. Nearby wineries are now offering a plethora of quality reds and whites to serve by the glass. The vacant storefronts have decreased from around half to less than 20 percent. Problem establishments have closed.

Within the past five years, dozens of new food and drink-related businesses have opened in Geneva, according to Matt Horn, who has been city manager since 2008.

► MORE: Where to eat and drink in Geneva

"We’ve seen a tremendous takeoff, and the best part of it is that it’s not a cookie cutter approach," he said. "Every time a new restaurant opens, it kind of works into a niche that we didn’t have before.”

Geneva appears to be perfectly situated for a thriving food and drink scene. The city is less than an hour's drive from both Rochester and Syracuse. It is at the top of picturesque Seneca Lake, home to more than 40 wineries. Its downtown is lined with stately historic buildings.

Geneva is a college town with Hobart and William Smith Colleges located near downtown. Finger Lakes Community College has an extension campus downtown and its Viticulture and Wine Center is home to its two-year program in viticulture and wine technology. Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, which focuses on food and agricultural research, has a large campus in Geneva.

The area is also a major region for agriculture, including dairy, apples, maple syrup, vegetables and more. This has attracted food producers, including Cheribundi, Seneca Foods and Red Jacket Orchards (which also has an inviting farm store west of downtown).

The nearby agriculture makes the area attractive to the restaurateurs who want a farm-to-table concept and to consumers who like knowing where their food comes from.

Kindred Fare, which opened on Hamilton Street outside downtown in December 2015, is among the restaurants that takes advantage of its proximity to producers. It sources all of its meats and much of its produce locally, working directly with some farms and accessing others through distributors, said the restaurant's head chef Samantha Buyskes. Its menu pays homage to the people involved in growing and producing food — the butcher, the baker, the fisherman, the farmer.

The spacious, airy restaurant, co-owned by Rochester restaurant industry veteran Susie Atvell, is tucked between two hotels — a Holiday Inn Express and a Microtel. Atvell became interested in the Geneva scene when the available space suited her vision for a restaurant. An evening out at Microclimate and the Red Dove Tavern downtown sealed the deal.

“Seeing what was going on in Geneva made me want to do it even more," she said. "It made the decision for me. Something felt right."

Since opening, it has added brunch and lunch service. The restaurant already is expanding into adjacent space, building a private room that can accommodate small rehearsal dinners and other groups.

READ MORE: 

► Meet Geneva's biggest fan (May 2016)

► Geneva awarded $10M for downtown revitalization

Grants and low-interest loans for small business development and building improvements, with funds coming from both the city and the state, have also helped spur growth in Geneva. A Race for Space initiative helped in the launch of Lake Drum Brewing in 2013, and will soon do the same with Wicked Water, an urban farm winery and tasting room on Castle Street downtown. Geneva was recently awarded a $10 million grant from the state for downtown revitalization, which will help address the last pockets of vacancy and blight.

The results of these programs are especially evident on the narrow, block-long Linden Street. Among the first of the new wave of businesses to open there was Microclimate Wine Bar, one of many beneficiaries of the grant programs.

After attending college in Virginia and moving to San Francisco, James-Emery Elkin returned home to Geneva to visit for a summer and never left. Propelled by his education in history, an interest in sustainable design and affordable real estate, he decided to buy the building at 38 Linden St.

“My interest was in having an old building and restoring it somehow, some way," he said. He was mentored in the project by his mother, Sophie Paillard-Elkin, who is known for her work in historic preservation and also owns The Left Bank, a restored bank on Linden Street that is now a grand events space.

Elkin describes Linden Street four years ago as sleepy and forlorn, with an insurance agent, photographer and mostly empty storefronts.

Microclimate opened in 2012. It's an unobtrusive presence, its name marked subtly with letters affixed to the building. The bar serves wines curated by Elkin's right-hand-person Stephanie Mira de Orduna. Its flights of five wines always have a Finger Lakes wine in the mix, allowing visitors to compare Finger Lakes wines to others from around the world.

For the gregarious Elkin, though, the wine bar is not about the wine — it's about having a place for people to "tell their stories" and get to know each other.

“We’re all rising with the tide — if we think the tide is indeed rising, which I think it is,” said Elkin.

Linden Street is now lined with shops and eateries, including Kashong Creek Craft Cider, Finger Lakes Sausage & Beer, Cebo and Simple Sweets Bakery. Elkin is a partner in a second business on the street, the Linden Social Club, a craft cocktail bar that also serves a concise menu of Baja fare. The street now has just one vacant building, which is in the process of being renovated.

"It felt like this spring everything caught on fire and opened at the same time which was fun," Horn said.

► Restaurant review: Cebo a Finger Lakes gem 

Linden Street closes to traffic on Friday and Saturday nights, as well as all day Sunday, for "Live from Linden," which offers outdoor eating and drinking, live music and other programming from May through October. (On the night of our visit, the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games in Rio were being shown on the side of a building). Another regular event is Geneva Night Out, which showcases local artists throughout downtown on the first Friday of each month from 5 to 8 p.m.

The most recent addition to Linden Street is the eagerly anticipated and long awaited FLX Table, owned by husband-and-wife team Christopher Bates and Isabel Bogadtke.

Local food enthusiasts know Bates and Bogadtke for owning the FLX Wienery in Starkey; the popular, casual spot combines house-made sausages, craft beer and good wines. Bates is known in wine circles as a Master Sommelier (which means he passed grueling tests), co-owner of Element Winery and one of Food & Wine magazine's 2016 sommeliers of the year.

FLX Table is an example of the distinctive, creative spaces that seems to characterize the new places in Geneva. It seats 12 people at a communal table with mismatched chairs found during Bogadtke's trips to antique shops. A hanging herb garden seems to float above the table.

The couple aims to create an environment similar to a dinner party, and Bogadtke encourages people to state their preferences when they make a reservation.

"We want them to come here and eat what they like," she said. "Since you come in and can't pick anything, you need to let me know anything I need to know."

Bates said that Geneva embodies the growth that is taking place in the Finger Lakes, and that the excitement is driven by the many restaurants that are "crushing it" in terms of food and drink.

"The fact that there's so many restaurants here right now, it really makes it almost like a one-stop shop," Bates said. "It's like a no-brainer as to where to stay ... and where to eat and drink."

"I think that Geneva with all that has become — probably for me — the most exciting town in the Finger Lakes."

Just around the corner, the owners of The Red Dove Tavern are happy to have more company in downtown Geneva.

“It’s nice not to be the only one in town doing something nice,” Hilt said. “It’s great to have options and that’s what we’re excited about. It’s fun and it keeps you on your toes and it makes everybody better.”

TRACYS@Gannett.com