Our Story

At Founding Farmers, Everything Matters. Nothing is too small. If something can be made better, smarter, healthier, that’s how we want to do it. For us, this means we make everything from scratch from our bread to our booze. We thoughtfully source all of our ingredients. We have active recycling and composting programs that divert about 90% of our waste from landfills. We design and operate sustainable restaurants. We earn LEED and Green Restaurant Association certifications. We started a nonprofit – Our Last Straw – to expand our sustainability efforts beyond the walls of our restaurants. We actively support our neighborhoods and our communities. We grow our people, providing hands-on training, mentorship, and opportunities for continued growth. Our business model, as a farmer-owned company, is designed to ensure American family farmers earn a larger share of the food dollar.

Our food-sourcing decisions are intended to “unbundle the supply chain” to bring higher quality ingredients to our guests and to influence the buying decisions of our suppliers and others in the hospitality industry. We give a great deal of thought to the farmers who grow and harvest our ingredients. We seek out family farmers and support purveyors who employ responsible farming methods. This includes farms that value and support conservation, biodiversity, animal stewardship, economic viability, and fair treatment of workers. We work to buy directly from farmers, including running two of our own 18-wheelers directly from American family farms and suppliers in North Dakota, picking up food and supplies along the way to Washington, D.C.

Mike V. and Chef Joe craft our menus to be location-specific and vary season to season, dependent upon essential working relationships with farmers and suppliers. Whenever possible, we get our supplies from a cadre of primarily independent and locally owned distributors, who source from nearby family farms and fishermen, that are able to carry the products we need, keep up with our volume, and align with our mission. Above all, we focus on quality, whether we’re bringing in peaches from down the road or broccoli from across the country.

Our goal – directly and indirectly – is to increase demand for family-farmed products while pioneering a business model that gives farmers a greater share of the food dollar. The purpose of our company is two-fold. First, to spread the message of the American family farmer: farming matters, how it is done matters, and that it is central to not only our nation’s history, but to also the great American future. Second, to do it on a platform of a sustainable, scalable, and earth-friendly business model, generating profits for farmers in ways we can be proud.

Founding Farmers is majority owned by American family farmers, including the more than 50,000 farmers of the North Dakota Farmers Union. Our restaurants operate, and are guided by, a very simple principle: we see and share everything … Through The Eyes Of The Farmer.™ When we make decisions, we see things the way American family farmers see things. We actively care about our neighbors, the land, the next generation, the quality of the product, and the overlap between our personal reputation and the meaning of our “brand.” This all comes together to make us an everyday neighborhood restaurant.

We opened our first restaurant in 2008 on Pennsylvania Avenue just a few blocks from the White House, with a mission to take people back to the source, to enjoy food that is grown, raised, and harvested on family farms across our region and our nation. Every day, we are working to affirm that family farming was, and remains, essential to our nation’s well-being. For over a decade we have stayed true to our mission. We never prioritize profit above mission. If our sales are down one quarter, we don’t pull back on portions or product quality. We maintain our principles and our values.

Just like our farmer owners, we are in it for the long haul, bringing a multi-generational approach to each unique project and growing sustainably. This is our company character.

Our name “Founding Farmers” is a nod to our Founding Fathers, many of whom were devoted farmers long before they became trailblazers for our country. While those leaders built and contributed to the American agricultural tradition, we recognize that our mission is also about growing a new venture with farmers at the root: one that strengthens their livelihood, gives back to the community, preserves our land and waterways, and makes high-quality food accessible to all.

We want you, our guest, to know that the food on your plate comes from a real person, whether it is the farmer working the land or the chef cooking it for you. We also want you to know that farmers directly benefit from you enjoying our food and drink. This is what it means to be farmer-owned.

We invite you to continue reading and explore our website. Even better, stop by or make a reservation in one of our restaurants to learn more about us, get a taste of our food and drink, and support American family farmers.

Our “secret sauce” is our people. Named one of the Best Places To Work in the DC metro area by the Washington Business Journal, we have a passion for fostering connectivity, relationships, career and life enrichment, excellence, and success. Our purpose is to grow and sustain our team with safe and supportive work environments, hands-on training and mentorship, ongoing skills building and cross-training, and opportunities for continued growth and learning. Seventy percent of our management team has been promoted and grown from within our company. We operate a “deserve your talent” model, working to create a culture of never-ending learning and reinvention. We teach classes in personal productivity and time management, provide continual skill development, offer excellent benefits, establish written career paths, and believe that job satisfaction and mental wellness are essential to success for the individual employee and the entire company. We are creating a stable workforce of well-trained, and very often, like-minded individuals that truly care about the company and our mission.