Seeds Cafe

**** NOTE: SEEDS PLANS TO SCALE BACK ITS REGULAR RESTAURANT HOURS, BUT WILL CONTINUE TO OPERATE AS A CATERER, MARKET, AND VENUE FOR SPECIAL DINNERS. ****

LaRahna Hughes’ Seeds Cafe is all about farm to table eating. A white board on the wall of the dining room lists the day’s provender and says which nearby farms it comes from. If you’d like details about the ingredients, just ask LaRahna. “Tomatoes! Who’d expect fresh tomatoes in December?” she exclaims, recounting that the flavorful slices used to garnish burgers and salads are the season’s last, but a recent frost provided her with bushels of green tomatoes that will soon be on the menu. “Can you tell me how many different greens are in that salad?” she asks with a broad smile. I could not, so she enumerated red kale from Munoz Farms, mustard greens from Brown’s Place in Harlem, GA, kohlrabi, bok choi, and slices of purple bell pepper. It’s nearly as much fun to discuss groceries with LaRahna as it is to eat what she does with them.

There are specials every day — a loaded baked potato, a vegan plate starring local vegetables, meats from ranches in the area. When I first stopped in, the white board listed andouille sausage from Williston’s Witter Farm. Smoky, spicy, bite-size disks were heaped on a plate alongside a mound of grand mashed potatoes (from scratch, of course) and a potent pile of greens that went far beyond just collards to include broccoli greens that added surprising sweetness.

Huge baked potatoes or crisp-fried potato skins are available loaded with pulled pork or chicken, house-made Hickory Red BBQ sauce, and melted cheese. LaRahna suggested I pile cole slaw atop my potato so its creamy juices could drip down and infiltrate the spud below, also adding cabbage crunch to every bite.

Seeds Cafe opens in the morning with a breakfast menu that includes South Carolina stone-ground grits, seasoned home fries, breakfast sandwiches, waffles and bacon & eggs.

Located in an out-of-the-way crossroads building that has been a donut shop and a chicken shack, now refurbished to be all pretty and gay, Seeds Cafe is one-of-a kind. You never know exactly what to expect, but you can be sure it will be interesting and delicious, and served with enchanting enthusiasm.