Cisco co-founder Sandy Lerner’s next big idea: Redefining road food

Before long trips, Sandy Lerner mini fridge bank again is connected to the cigarette making its Chevy Volt and fills it with the type of organic food, local, which Cheerleading for two decades.

The owner of the first farm in Virginia, to be both certified organic and human certificate, Lerner not want to risk going hungry on the road, where the only option may be the service station food.

"And I'm not alone," says Lerner, drinking coffee on vintage sweet coffee, the new grocery store and an hour west of Washington in Marshall, Va. When Lerner tells the people that the store, the first "hundreds" plans to open near highways in the region, you will have a window drive-through takeaways and organic burger $ 5, "the first thing they say is" Oh thank God, I should not bring food with me anymore, "he said.

Ask how you're considering joining these price points, agricultural practices, married with its 800 acres of farm Ayrshire and Head Tavern Upperville Hunter and flashes a knowing smile.

"We spent 20 years learning," he said.

Reinventing system

For no reason, Lerner, 61, is a formidable business woman.

In the 1980s, she and her husband after giant technology-based Cisco Systems, which invented the router (yes, that one), and has made millions collected when their participation after being shot in a company Shake- up. In 1996, he followed his interest long the welfare of animals at the start Ayrshire, with a focus on animal endangered species. That same year, Lerner began Urban Decay cosmetics company; He sold a few years later, and is now part of L'Oreal.

Stephanie Bates, owner of a business colleague and friend in Upperville, Va., Have long known the scope of Lerner. "She is a woman of endless talent and has the ability to fill the niche that people are looking for," Bates said.

Lerner Ayrshire experience taught him that he needed to buy a slaughterhouse for the economy of this new model of fast food job. Therefore, when one of the half dozen facilities certified Department of Agriculture in Northern Virginia United States became available this year in Winchester, that's what he did.

Although Ayrshire Farm has the ability to provide meat for the first two stores, the second is to turn off Interstate 81 in Winchester this year, the soft crop will buy from local farmers in the future. Lerner said he plans to help farmers interested in obtaining the necessary certifications and pay more for their animals as livestock trade in your county.

"This is the reconstruction of a local food system," he said.

Eric Bendfeldt specialist Virginia Cooperative Extension in sustainable communities, said farmers always looking to diversify their markets, "and that these nodes along the I-81 and other places that really makes a lot of sense."

With his latest business venture, Lerner joins a handful of others in the country who are trying to prove that fast food can be good food.

This year, leaders of the California Roy Choi, truck Kogi Korean taco and Daniel Patterson, two stars Coi Michelin opened the first Locol outpost, chain healthier fast food, in the neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles from the south. The menu includes $ 4 hamburgers with meat mixed grains, $ 6 bowls of noodles and fresh $ 1 instead of soda water. A second location in Oakland and a food truck that opened this year add up to a dollar price of each item while competing with other fast food options.

chain "fast-casual" like Elevation Burger, based in northern Virginia, offer alternatives to putting organic meat and grazing between the rollers, but their prices are closer to $ 10. And although the provision of care Chipotle Mexican Grill meat has gained a loyal following, high model took a hit after an E. coli outbreak late last year.

Kombucha and burgers

As for Lerner, you would like optimum product to compete with McDonald in Marshall to I-66 pilots looking for a pit stop. But he also wants her interior offers white brick to be a community space for the bucolic town that is, obviously, far from being a food desert.

At first glance, the commercial space in the lobby renovated the former Marshall National Bank & Trust Co. is a much larger version of picturesque Lerner Home Farm Store in Middleburg, Va., Which was closed in August so you can focus on new stores. The grocery store sells meat and other farm Ayrshire with local and prepared food products, and those who want a turkey Ayrshire $ 145 can still be found here.

"This is basically the store in Middleburg on steroids," says Lerner. "Although I hate to say steroids, because it is so unhealthy and they are, of course, healthy."

This space flagship retail 3,500 square feet, not counting the seats above and offices for the brand is increasingly widespread as to suitable for table week or dinner Thanksgiving the refrigerated meat display and ready meals, all available for delivery. The wooden shelves are local products such as Virginia peanuts, chocolate cookies and hot cocoa Firehook manna and national organic products.

On the back of a high-ceilinged lobby, the bank vault became a cellar, and a refrigerator walk-behind a small bar full of beer Virginia. The drums have more beers and organic Kombucha Barefoot Bucha and nitro snow cold brewed coffee in the coffee, both based in Charlottesville

There is also a coffee bar and, on the other side of the arcades of walls separating the bank office buildings, a cafeteria full of light. A post-construction of a large car park entrance - a point the business owner uses for lack of sales Middleburg Parking - brings customers fresh flowers and internal line brand pet foods foodie hairy.



The drive-through is behind the store, where two lanes are spent building bench. (Do not worry: The burgers are delivered through a window or out of cars they expect not turn pneumatic tube.)

Sheree McDowell, manager of food and soft drinks harvest, said he wants to offer options "for families who want to feed their children a healthy diet, but they still have the need to quickly get the meal time to time."

To this end, the spigots of sweet potato with a hamburger for a child are baked instead of fried (which is, by design, not fryer on the premises) and come with a small cookie and organic juice or milk for $ 6. Families can sift through all the options pre-order online or through the application of the mark, allowing more time to approach a cooked to order.

Community and convenience

The store must also receive its share of vagrants, drawn to the city by a street that is now full of apologies to mind feeding people take a detour. He recognized national Red Truck Bakery has its location near Marshall. This was particularly fortuitous when the building burned Suave harvest in early September, just weeks before the scheduled opening, and a baker who works in the morning shift was there to call 911. The damage was minor.

Across the main street it is the restaurant's main field and recently opened for the target price worth Piedmont region of Virginia. Riccordino a small kitchen walled up in the same owners, snacks next Chicago style hot hawks. Down the street, the butcher cuts Total ox sells farmed animals grazing "neighborhood" bar and butcher opens for dinner Tuesday through Saturday.

"Park the car once, and it's like shopping at three stops," says the owner of the red truck bakery Brian Noyes, who watched only grocery store on the street, an IGA close just before Marshall opened last year . "We all wanted another thing coming, so here is next."




Lerner said the momentum of Marshall is one of the reasons why it decided to locate the headquarters of sweet harvest and the first store here. The store keeps one foot in the aisle of the grocery store of the community for which his predecessor was known Middleburg with the launch of the new brand concept more practical, Lerner has been perfected over the years.

"This is the food system that I know of," said Lerner, a senior converted in California to Virginia Culture "I'm not Bill Gates;. I can not fix this, but I can help you here."

Pipkin writes about food, local agriculture and the environment.