Modern Food, Historic Touch
BY ERIC FRITZIUS
At the western end of Washington Street, right at its junction with Church Street, sits one of the oldest buildings in Lewisburg. Originally built in 1790, it predates the formation of the state of West Virginia by 73 years. Constructed from hand-hewn logs and covered by wood siding, the main two story house was originally separated from a log-built kitchen at the rear by a dog trot, but which was eventually enclosed to create a larger single structure. For most of its first 200 years it functioned as a home, known locally as the Bowyer-Grow-Foster House, after attorney Luke Bowyer, who lived there in the early 1800s, and for a later resident, William Foster, who served as the mayor of Lewisburg from 1928-1930 and again from 1933-1942. Since 1998, however, the house has been occupied not by residents but by restaurants. These have included Tavern 1785, Bella Casa, and Stella’s. Today, however, it serves as the home to Lewisburg’s newest restaurant, The Humble Tomato.
Ken and Emily Santmyer
Owned by Ken and Emily Santmyer, the Humble Tomato has been a dream project of theirs for the past several years. It’s a casual-atmosphere, Italian-themed restaurant and bar—the kind of place where you might find yourself sitting out on the patio with your dog to enjoy pizza for lunch, or inside for a delicious meal at night, or just hanging with friends to watch a game at the bar on the weekend.
Ken is no stranger to Italian food. His grandfather, Kenney Grant, opened the original Gino’s Pizza & Spaghetti House in 1961—a restaurant so successful it now has dozens of locations across West Virginia.
“He started the first one on 29th street in Huntington. So I worked for him for a long, long time,” Ken says. “All my pizza knowledge and restaurant knowledge I learned from him. And then my dad has had his Gino’s since `73. So I kind of grew up in the restaurant business.”
While Ken lived much of his life in Huntington, he and Emily actually met in Lewisburg. At the time, Ken was working for Bella Casa, the restaurant which occupied the Humble Tomato’s location from 2011-2013. Emily, who lived in Charleston then, was in town to visit her parents, who had retired to the area. The two were soon married at the Old Stone Presbyterian Church.
For the next few years, the Santmyers lived in Charleston, where Emily had a career as a hospital administrator overseeing two veterinary hospitals. Ken began commuting from there to Huntington to work for his grandfather, managing nine Gino’s locations. However, they longed to return to the small town life of Lewisburg.
“We looked for jobs here for a couple of years, and couldn’t find anything that was comparable to what we were doing in Charleston,” Emily says. “So we just made our own business.”
Being familiar with the former Bella Casa location, the Santmyers knew it was both already set up for the needs of a restaurant as well as currently unoccupied. They purchased the building in March of 2018 and began the 10 month process of renovations on their new restaurant which would be called… well, that was the tricky part.
“We didn’t want to be called a bistro or a pizzeria, even though we are focused on Italian food,” Emily says. “We wanted it to be something that would mean fresh and garden and have a vegetable in the name, but also be able to evolve as we evolve.”
After much brainstorming, they settled on the name The Humble Tomato, a perfectly respectable name for an Italian restaurant but one which does not pigeonhole them into serving only one type of food. “We can put anything on the menu,” Ken says.
“And we just made it up,” Emily says with a grin.
Ken laughs. “It’s not an awesome story.”
Since its earliest days as a restaurant in the late `90s, the building’s interior had been altered very little. Most of the lighting was designed to appear historical, so it was always very dim, even during daylight hours. There were other structural characteristics that they wanted to improve as well. However, Emily says it was important to them to incorporate the historical aspects of the structure while still achieving an overall lighter feel.
Inside, a wall was removed to open things up, while some previous interior doorways were closed off to control traffic flow and create more usable space within existing rooms. A previously finished wall was stripped of its drywall to reveal the original historic log beams within.
“We wanted to keep the old and rehab it as much as possible, and then incorporate some modern things,” Emily says.
The most obvious difference for those driving by was the change of the exterior paint from its former yellow with green trim to a warm reddish gray stone color. “The exterior colors are all from Benjamin Moore Colonial Williamsburg collection,” Emily says. “This was a color I saw there and fell in love with and thought it would be perfect for this place.” The newly repainted white trim of the porch pops against it, as does the addition of a coat of bright red paint on the main entrance door, directing customers exactly how to get inside. Assisting with this is a set of newly added steps leading from the sidewalk directly to the front door. Customers can choose this direct route or can still weave their way around through the garden path with its lush flower beds and tiered fountain.
The Santmyers were assisted in their redesign by husband and wife team Jill Lafear and Seth Cyfers, with Ackenpucky Design of Huntington. They brought in new wallpaper and interior paint colors, and designed and constructed a beautiful new copper and tile-lined bar, a new bar area seating bench, and created custom banquette seating for tables downstairs. The cast iron bases of the existing tables were retained, but the tabletops replaced with new oak butcher-block style tops. And new lighting was added including hanging pendant lamps with Edison bulbs that help lend atmosphere.
“The bulbs are LED but they are the old timey looking ones to bring in some old with new,” Emily says. “They are also warm and glowing, we wanted the space to have a cozy feel so customers will come and want to stay and hang for a while.” Smaller modern lights are suspended on thin cables which strung between the exposed beams of the ceilings throughout. These create modern-levels of illumination without distracting from the historic look.
The Santmyers had already been pondering recipes for their new restaurant over a period of years. “We started doing it in Charleston, before we moved here,” Emily says. With Ken’s access to large kitchens, the refinement of recipes was made easier. It still took experimentation to bring them to the level the Santmyers wanted. They intended each dish on their menu to be made from scratch using only the freshest ingredients, just as they might at home. Ken says that from sauces to dough to the house mozzarella, everything is made on site by him and his team of skilled cooks—or, when not, is regionally-sourced. Steak and bacon come from Swift Level Farm of Greenbrier County and their sausage is from Angelo’s Italian Sausage in Charleston. Buns for sandwiches come from Brunetti’s Italian Bakery in Kenova, W.Va. “We don’t really get anything out of a bag,” Ken says. “It’s all prepared by hand.”
Pizza, they knew, would be a major component of their menu. These are prepared using a blend of mozzarella and provolone sprinkled over fresh toppings and homemade sauce over Ken’s hand-crafted dough. “I’m really good at making dough,” he says with a knowing nod that conveys he’s not being immodest but merely stating the facts as only a third generation pizza cook can. “I’ve been working with dough forever. If it’s too warm out, it rises too quick and you gotta knock it down sooner. There’s a big process to it.”
Pizzas can be made to order using available toppings. Or the Humble Tomato also serves several creatively-named specialty pizzas. Some, such as the Cluck Norris—which is a barbecue grilled chicken pizza with red onion and bacon—are more obvious in origin. And the “Magnum PI,” with its capicola, grilled pineapple and bacon, doesn’t take Thomas Magnum-level detective skills to deduce that it’s a Hawaiian pizza. The “Diana,” on the other hand, is a bit of a thinker—topped as it is with pepperoni, fennel sausage, mushrooms, red onion, Kalamata olives and banana peppers. One could ask, “Who’s Diana? And why does she like all that great stuff on her pizza?” Ken has the answer: “That pizza’s like an `everything’ pizza. It’s like a supreme. Diana Ross was a Supreme, so we called it the `Diana.’” Stop, in the name of love, indeed.
Other menu offerings include appetizers many of which could make a meal themselves. The charcuterie and cheese board is a spread of cured meats and artisan cheeses that can be paired with nuts, honey, dried apricots and olives, with toasted crostini and is presented on a slate board. There are other favorites such as the garlic-knots served with house-made marinara, or sweet potato and sage gnocchi tossed in a brown butter sauce atop whipped ricotta cheese.
Entrees on the menu include calzones in traditional, pepperoni, or sausage and banana pepper varieties. Their sandwiches include meatball, chicken pesto, Italian, and an open-faced pizza sub to which customers are able to add toppings.
“The Italian sandwich is excellent,” Ken says. I’m a huge Italian sub fan and ours is really good.”
Pasta dishes include spaghetti marinara, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken Alfredo, and a spicy shrimp diavolo.
There is also the story behind their lasagna and ravioli, both of which did not appear on the original menu. After offering both lasagna and ravioli as daily specials on multiple occasions, customers consistently requested these be made permanent additions to the menu. The Santmyers listened and the lasagna and ravioli varieties are now used as permanent rotating daily pasta specials. As this writer can attest, the lasagna is among his top five lasagnas to have ever tasted.
For Sunday brunch, the Humble Tomato offers their regular pasta dishes as well as a smaller menu of brunch items which can shift from week to week. Such classic brunch dishes as eggs, chicken and waffles, or shrimp and grits will be served alongside more experimental fare such as a chicken and waffle sandwich with maple cream sauce, or breakfast pizzas in which the egg yolks are broken over the pizza just prior to baking. Future brunch specials include a sausage gravy calzone for an Italy meets southern biscuits and gravy style dish.
There is another brunch staple which the Humble Tomato has put their own spin on: mimosas. Bottomless mimosas, specifically. Meaning, as long as you’re drinking them, they keep coming.
Which brings us to their cocktail and alcohol-free mocktail menus from their full bar. Among the highlights are the Humble Tomato Bloody Mary with an herb pesto drizzle, ringed with a mix of savory seasoning and a pepperoni/mozzarella/cherry tomato garnish. Then they have a lemon basil martini, made with Absolut Citron, which makes for a refreshing sip year-round. And there is a traditional Manhattan made with Smooth Ambler Old Scout American Whiskey, as well as a Fashionable Mockhattan that trades the whiskey for orange juice.
“We’re a big proponent of showcasing West Virginia,” Emily says. Out-of-town visitors are always interested in sampling local beers and spirits. As such, Smooth Ambler Distillery products are the house brand for the Humble Tomato. Their bar is also stocked with beer from Greenbrier Valley Brewing Company and other WV-based breweries such as Big Timber, Weathered Ground, and North End Tavern.
Ken and Emily make a great team, with Emily in charge of the front of house and administrative duties while Ken handles the back of house kitchen side. It’s certainly kept them both busy with long hours put into the business. Since their grand opening on February 18, business has been steady. The work is worth it, though, when they hear how much their customers love their food.
“I enjoy the guests’ reaction,” Ken says with a warm smile. “Or the satisfaction when you’re out to the table and they say `Everything’s great.’”
The Humble Tomato is open Sunday 11-4, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays 11-9, Friday and Saturday 11-11, and is closed on Tuesday.
