Boca's popular Farmer's Table restaurant to open location in NPB (PBP) 5-29-19
By Liz Balmaseda
Posted May 29, 2019 at 5:09 PM
Updated May 29, 2019 at 5:14 PM
The health-minded restaurant will boast golf course views
from every seat, says its founder.
Joey Giannuzzi, the surfer-turned-chef who transformed a passion for healthy
foods into Boca Raton’s popular Farmer’s Table restaurant, will bring the concept
to North Palm Beach this fall.
Giannuzzi has partnered with the village to bring his Farmer’s Table to the
restaurant and banquet rooms at the North Palm Beach Country Club, which is
undergoing an extensive, nearly $19 million rebuild that extends to the pool and
parking lot. He says he plans for an “October-ish” debut.
When it’s open, the restaurant will offer sweeping views of the new 18-hole Jack
Nicklaus Signature golf course from every seat, says Giannuzzi.
With its updated farmhouse decor, the health-minded Farmer’s Table aims to be a
multi-tasking presence at the municipal country club. In addition to being a 260-
seat restaurant and bar, Farmer’s Table will operate the 200-seat banquet space for
special events, plus an express market for grab-and-go foods, he says.
“We’re going to keep the menu pretty much the same, but the place is going to be a
little different. We’ll have the golfing crowd,” says Giannuzzi.
He says the upcoming restaurant will offer lunch and dinner, plus limited breakfast
options for morning golfers. The new location will have an expanded, 30-seat bar
with indoor and outdoor seating, he says.
Entertainment & Life
B o ca’s p opular Far mer’s Table restaurant to open
location in No rth P alm Beach
Those unfamiliar with the Boca-born concept can expect full, diverse menus at
lunch and dinner. And while the restaurant offers plenty of options for vegans and
those who prefer gluten-free dishes, it gives equal attention to meat and fish dishes.
So while a gluten-free/vegan diner can enjoy a hearty dinner entree of (pasta-less)
veggie lasagna ($18) or potato paprika goulash, a carnivore can dig into a grass-fed
beef burger on brioche ($15) or grass-fed beef short rib with mushroom bordelaise
sauce ($27). The happy middle might be Giannuzzi’s “Spasta and Meatballs,”
organic spaghetti squash topped with chicken or vegan meatballs in tomato-basil
sauce ($19).
Giannuzzi says the country club deal has been in the works for the past few
months. The chef/restaurateur, who opened Farmer’s Table in 2013 with business
partner Mitchell Robbins, was looking to expand the concept. The contact with
Village Hall came via a real estate broker friend late last year. They went down to
Village Hall, where they chatted with village manager Andy Lukasik for more than
two hours, says Giannuzzi.
The restaurant co-owner says he was drawn to the clubhouse project because it
calls for an operation that’s very similar to his Boca Farmer’s Table, a full-service
restaurant with special banquet facilities, market and a sense of community.
“We want to create an experience, so folks can drive up and get away for a couple of
hours. They’re in our care for a couple of hours,” says Giannuzzi. The clubhouse’s
proximity to the pool and golf course, he says, “fits in with our health and wellness
approach.”
Giannuzzi says the process leading up to the country club contract felt a little “like a
‘Shark Tank’ presentation.” As in: “It was really fun.”
He says village officials invited his team to come up and provide a tasting.
Giannuzzi did a presentation in front of the village council, then whipped up 70
dishes for the group. On the spread: a range of Farmer’s Table favorites, from
ramen to salmon, pork chop to swordfish, “a little bit of everything.”
As the process went on, village officials took a busload of locals to Boca to see
Farmer’s Table firsthand, says Giannuzzi, who gave the visitors a tour of the place.
“They loved it, and they bought all kinds of goodies from our Farmer’s Table
Express to take home,” he says. “We’re so looking forward to becoming part of the
community there.”
Giannuzzi hopes to bring the same kind of activities to the clubhouse that he offers
in Boca, from cooking classes to dietary lectures, Saturday morning yoga to
barbecue nights.
The expansion is part of a dream born more than a decade ago, when he worked as
executive chef at Henry’s, the southwestern Delray mainstay. He dreamed of
opening a place of his own, a market cafe that would be thoroughly “green,” from
the recycled decor to the organic, mostly local ingredients to the health-seeking
mindset.
He found just the space for this concept, which he called The Green Gourmet, just
across the same plaza on Jog Road. There would be no deep-fryer, microwave or
butter in the place. His organic dishes, made with ingredients gathered from a
patchwork of area farms, proved to be so popular that regular customers started
clamoring for dinner reservations. This is how the market cafe evolved into a
white-tablecloth spot.
Giannuzzi closed Green Gourmet in November 2013 after four-and-a-half years in
business, but only because his green dream had outgrown the space and concept. A
few weeks later, he and Robbins opened Farmer’s Table in a sprawling space that’s
adjacent to a Wyndham Hotel in Boca. The place was an instant hit. A big, buzzy
restaurant serving healthy foods? Boca was there for it in a big way. Farmer’s Table,
where live jazz now flows in the courtyard during weekend brunch and special-
occasion parties keep the banquet spaces busy, grew to include a prepared foods
market that will be replicated in North Palm Beach.
“When I originally opened the Green Gourmet, my dream was to bring healthy
food to the mainstream,” says Giannuzzi. “Now at Farmer’s Table, we can scream it
from the mountaintop.”
—
Farmer’s Table: Expected to open in October at the North Palm Beach Country
Club, 951 U.S. Hwy 1, North Palm Beach; original Boca Raton location is at 1901
N. Military Tr., 561-417-5836