Musicians open new restaurant for vegetarians

Located in Bloomington’s west side neighborhood, The Owlery, a vegetarian food restaurant co-owned by musicians Ryan Woods and Toby Foster, yielded a successful opening night, serving about 100 to 120 customers.

“Everyone seemed pretty happy with the food,” Foster said. “We made food as fast as we could.”

Woods, a singer and bass player, spent the last eight years producing original artwork and touring with his band, Defiance, Ohio.

“We tour pretty constantly. We just finished a tour of the West Coast and Australia,” Woods said. “We are all from different parts of Ohio, from different cities, but we all met up in Columbus, Ohio. I think it just seemed like a fitting name. None of us are actually from Defiance, Ohio, but it seemed appropriate.”

Woods said he had contemplated opening a restaurant in Bloomington, his current home, for several years and managed to do so upon returning from his tour in Australia.

“It’s been a plan for a while. The tour was already booked when we decided to open the restaurant,” Woods said. “Toby and I got a real plan down six or eight months ago.”

Woods, a vegetarian for 15 years, said he found it difficult to eat vegetarian foods when dining out in Bloomington, despite the sizable vegetarian and vegan community the town has to offer.

“I think we were just tired of waiting for the right kind of vegetarian restaurant,” Woods said. “I’ve been in Bloomington for about eight years, and the kind of place I wanted to eat at just has not come about. I think we just wanted to have a restaurant that has the kind of food we like to eat.”

Woods said the restaurant is to him a more honest way to earn a living.

As a musician, Woods said he never felt comfortable selling his music or artwork, but that opening a restaurant was different.

“I think for me, with playing music, I really enjoy it and am lucky to get to go to a lot of places and meet a lot of people and actually get paid sometimes to do that,” Woods said. “I guess for me I found that I wanted to spend more time in Bloomington and not be gone as much, so I feel like a restaurant and selling people food is somewhat more honest.”

Woods said he wanted to use the restaurant as a vehicle for a greater social message about conservation and animal rights, issues he said he feels very passionate about.

He also said he wanted the restaurant to serve a more unique brand of vegetarian
options.

“It’s flavorful vegetarian food. There are lots of places you can find in town that offer some sort of Asian or Asian fusion meal and get one thing on the menu that just happens to not have meat,” Woods said. “I guess we wanted to offer more traditional dishes that people have gotten used to eating growing up, things people and their families have an affinity for.”

The “traditional dishes” include vegetarian style “Spaghetti & Meatballs” and “Fried Chicken Dinner,” which, according to the menu, is “tofu fried chicken, smothered in vegetarian gravy, served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and a daily vegetable.”

Along with serving a more unique vegetarian menu fashioned by chef Bobb Easterbrook, who received training from the Natural Gourmet Cookery School in New York, Woods said he wanted to provide his customers with a greater range of price choices.

“We also wanted to have a range of if you want something fairly inexpensive like a sandwich, but also if you want to go out for the night and to have a pretty nice meal, not just one or two choices, but to have an entire menu of vegetarian choices,” Woods said.

Foster, who performs his music solo, compared the experience of being a musician to eating out.

“Playing music and going on tour is a way to connect with people,” Foster said. “Going out to a restaurant is very similar in a way.”

Foster and Woods both said they enjoy being musicians because of the different people they get to meet while traveling and performing at various venues.

They said the experience of owning a restaurant is similar and that they hope their customers feel a connection to The Owlery.

“We want it to be a place where people like to come, a really inviting place where people feel welcome and are happy to be,” Foster said.