Home / Our story

Named after
a grandmother.

Cecilia Ruiz cooked for eight people every Sunday for forty years and never once wrote a recipe down. This is our attempt at the feeling, if not the food.

The kitchen pass
2019

A hardware
store, briefly.

Marisol Ruiz and Nora Bell met working the line at a restaurant neither of them wants named. They spent two years looking for a room in Hudson and found a shuttered hardware store with a pressed-tin ceiling and forty years of paint on the floor.

They kept the ceiling, sanded the floor, and put in a bar long enough that nobody eating alone feels like they're eating alone. Marisol runs the kitchen. Nora runs everything else, including the wine list and, most nights, the door.

How we cook

Three rules,
loosely held.

Buy close, cook simply

Eleven farms inside an hour. If it didn't grow near here, it needs a very good reason to be on the plate - the olive oil and the anchovies have earned theirs.

Let the menu move

We reprint every afternoon. Dishes last a week, sometimes three days. If you loved something, tell us and we'll tell you honestly whether it's coming back.

Feed the staff first

Family meal at 4pm, sat down, at a table, every service. It's the least negotiable thing in the building.

The people

Who's here.

Twelve of us, most nights. Six have been here since the first service.

Portrait

Marisol Ruiz

Chef & co-owner
Portrait

Nora Bell

Co-owner, wine & the room
Portrait

Ellis Fontaine

Sous chef
Portrait

Ben Okafor

Bar manager
Where it comes from

Our farms.

Eleven growers, all within about an hour. Most of them eat here too.

Ironwood FarmSky High DairyRuby HollowCopake Greens Two Rivers FishMilk House CreameryWheelbarrow OrchardStonebridge Meats Little Falls MushroomsHarlem Valley GrainBell & Bramble Honey
11Farms we buy from
7Years on Warren Street
40Seats, plus the bar
1Menu, rewritten weekly
“The leeks. I've thought about the leeks more than I've thought about most meals I've eaten this year.” A regular, overheard at the bar

Come eat
with us.

Wednesday through Sunday, five until eleven. The bar doesn't take reservations and never will.

Reserve a table →