Our Story

A family, a woodpile, and one very good grill

Maple & Char is family-owned. The open-fire grill is the centerpiece of our kitchen, the sides are scratch-made, and we source produce locally wherever we possibly can.

How it started

We're a family-owned restaurant, in the most literal sense — the people who signed the lease are the same people you'll see running the pass on a Saturday night, refilling water glasses when the room gets busy, and arguing good-naturedly about whether the cornbread needs more salt.

The idea started at a backyard grill, the way a lot of restaurants quietly do. Weekend after weekend, we noticed the same thing: food cooked over an open fire simply tasted better than anything we could do indoors, and it needed almost nothing done to it afterward. No heavy sauces, no long ingredient lists. Just hardwood, patience, and good raw material.

When we finally built a restaurant around that idea, we started with the fire and worked outward.

“Build the kitchen around the fire, not the other way around.”

A wood-fired ribeye resting and sliced on a rustic wooden board

The Centerpiece

The open-fire grill

Our open-fire grill sits at the center of the kitchen, in full view of the dining room, and it is the single busiest thing in the building. Someone lights it hours before we open, and it doesn't go out until the last table has gone home.

Nearly everything crosses it: dry-aged ribeye, whole Cornish hen, trout, market vegetables, flatbread dough, and in late summer, peaches for dessert. Cooking over an open fire is less forgiving than a range — you're managing coals, not turning a dial — but it seasons food in a way nothing else does.

Scratch-made, and local where we can

Everything that arrives alongside the grill is made here. The cornbread batter is mixed and baked in cast iron to order. The potato gratin is layered by hand, one slice at a time. Dressings are whisked in-house, desserts are made each afternoon, and the pastry for the chocolate maple tart is rolled on our own bench.

We source produce locally wherever we possibly can. That means our vegetable dishes shift through the year and occasionally disappear for a week — if the carrots from a nearby farm are better than what a distributor can send us, we'd rather change the menu than downgrade the plate. When the season doesn't cooperate, we say so honestly rather than pretending otherwise.

What we care about

Family-Owned

Independent, run day to day by the family that owns it. No group, no corporate playbook.

Open Fire First

The open-fire grill is the centerpiece of the kitchen, and nearly every dish passes over it.

Scratch-Made Sides

Cornbread, gratin, dressings and desserts, all made in our own kitchen daily.

Locally Sourced

Produce from nearby growers wherever the season and the supply allow it.

The room

Warm and rustic-modern: reclaimed oak, low amber light, a little noise from the open kitchen. It's casual dining and genuinely family-friendly — high chairs, kids who talk loudly, none of it is a problem here. There's a full bar for people who'd rather eat at the rail with a bourbon.

Pricing is deliberately mid-range, with entrees between $18 and $32, because we'd rather be somewhere you come back to on an ordinary Tuesday than somewhere you visit once a year.

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