June Restaurant

Meet Grindstone friend and client Evan Barry, farmer and owner of Down River Farm, where he grows some of the freshest and finest vegetables in Central Illinois.

Evan began his farming career on a 1.5 acre market garden in Asheville, NC, before exploring agriculture internationally, working for a year in South America on six different farms in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, farming sheep in Patagonia, cacao and coffee in Ecuador, then working on a vineyard in Argentina.

Discovering the people and places behind these plants we call commodities taught him the cultural implications of our actions from a very unique perspective.​

Upon his return, Evan sought a job as a farmhand near Chicago to be closer to his family and found his way to Henry’s Farm, where he truly learned to embody the dance that is farming.

Evan experienced firsthand how one crop weaves into another seamlessly — how spring lettuces make way for mulching tomatoes, which falls into the first summer squash harvest and the intensive weeding sessions, then the sweet corn harvest which makes way for the green bean harvest, leading back to lettuces in the fall, and finally clearing the field before the first frost.

Evan learned how to focus on each of his senses and movements to farm as effectively and efficiently as possible. He embraced and soon embodied how to live and breathe this profession, day in and day out, for the entirety of a season.

Learn more and experience it all at our monthly music and farm dinner series. The next dinner will be prepared on July 31 by Chef Josh Adams (former owner and executive chef at June Restaurant) in a live fire outdoor kitchen served at a communal table on the farm and accompanied by acoustic tunes from Nathan Taylor Music.

DM us to request an invite to book any of the few remaining reservations via our private link and password.

We’d love to see you at the table.