The summer months have seen a few new dining options offered in Franklin.
A few weeks after its grand opening last month, business is smokin’ at the Smoke Cantina in Franklin, located at the former Barr’s Insurance building at 1256 Liberty St.
The new restaurant was formerly the Homegrown Kitchen Café, which was located in the back of the building until it closed in mid-February to be transformed into Smoke Cantina’s commercial kitchen.
After seven months of extensive renovations, the restaurant now serves lunch and dinner in a sit-down setting at the front of the building, and Benson said they “never could have planned how busy” they’ve been since opening.
Benson described the menu as Argentinian-style with “smoke from the grill” but also “with a little Asian flair”—and it also has pop-up menus like Tuesday taco nights.
The restaurant has a woodfire grill and butchers most of its meat in-house, and it also serves tapas, which it eventually plans to pair with wine tasting once it gets its liquor license.
“We wanted to add a different choice to the area. A lot of guests say it’s reminiscent of a bistro in Soho or something — it’s intimate and casual,” Benson said.
“The Homegrown Kitchen has kind of developed into a brand,” Benson added. Smoke Cantina, still under the brand, continues to source its ingredients locally as much as possible and uses the Homegrown Kitchen’s fishmonger.
A second location under the Homegrown Kitchen, Grandview Lookout, has been been operating since April in the former Fat Dogs on Grandview Road in Oil City.
Located next to Murray’s Scenic View, the establishment serves Penn State Berkey Creamery ice cream as well as food and other treats.
Vino and Vibes
Meanwhile, up the street and around the corner from Smoke Cantina, winery Vino and Vibes is enjoying its new location at 304 13th Street, where it moved earlier this year.
“We have a full kitchen now, and we’re offering a menu,” said Vino and Vibes owner Kim Shawgo. “We have a very nice patio outside in the back.”
The winery, formerly located in the AFSCME building on Liberty Street, is an offshoot of Wines of America, whose wine is made in Pittsburgh and for which Shawgo is the manager.
All the restaurant’s entrees and several other menu items are made with the winery’s wines, Shawgo said.
She and her husband, Todd Shawgo, did all the interior design except for the bar, and much of the work.
“We got to build it the way we wanted to,” said Kim Shawgo, who added that the new space with its kitchen fits their needs much better.
“Every Friday we have karaoke, and we’re going to be going back to having live bands in the fall on Saturdays,” she said, adding Vino and Vibes also offers its space for events such as class reunions, birthdays, baby showers and even weddings.
Mix It Up Nutrition
At the other end of the block, Mix It Up Nutrition has settled into Suite 103 at 314 West Park St. in the same building as West Park Guitar and the Franklin Boxing and Fitness Academy.
The beverage spot provides sugar-free “loaded” teas —flavored teas with caffeine, vitamins and electrolytes —protein shakes and caffeine-free kids’ hydration drinks with minerals, sweetened with stevia rather than sugar.
Owners Katelyn Myers and Morgan Docherty are both respiratory therapists who started the store to “bring the nutritional options of major cities adapted to the small town lifestyle.”
As moms, Myers and Docherty said they wanted to give on-the-go families options for a healthy lifestyle, as well as start a business that was more family-friendly for their own families.
“We wanted something…where we could have our kids here,” Docherty said as she held her one-year-old son, Atlas.
Both she and Myers still work as therapists, Docherty at UPMC Northwest and Myers at Penn Highlands Dubois, although Myers said she is “casual” and Docherty said that while she’s full-time now, she plans to go part-time in October.
So far, they said the store is going well and they are starting to get a local customer base.
“A lot of schools and hospitals have been coming here,” Myers said. “We’re thankful for the community support.”
