A loss to farm-to-table fans and Wine Country visitors, two of McMinnville’s most high-profile restaurants will close next month. The Ground, the Carlton-based hospitality company behind both Grounded Table and its more casual sister eatery, the Pub,
announced this week that both restaurants will suspend operations on Friday, November 20.
Grounded Table opened in the summer of 2022 under the name Humble Spirit. It was a big time for dining in McMinnville — Matthew Lightner had just opened Okta in the Tributary Hotel, and Kari Shaughnessy was previewing Mac Market diners on dishes that would later make up the menu at Hayward.
The Third Street restaurant, with its exposed brick walls and always-aspirational statement flower arrangement, was designed as the dining arm for the Ground, a place to showcase the meats and produce from the business’s own farm.
Brenda Smola-Foti and Frank Foti — former CEO of ship-building company Vigor Industrial — founded the business at Carlton’s Tabula Rasa Farms, a now 550-acre property with the goal of pasture-raising cattle, pigs, and other livestock using regenerative agricultural methods. From the beginning, connecting with the public was a part of the vision, so opening a restaurant to showcase the farm’s meats and, later, organic produce, too, seemed like an important next step.
For four years, chefs Sarah Schafer and Brett Uniss have presented consistently beautiful plates at Grounded Table: Oregon albacore confit heaped with puckery celery-fennel salad and edible flowers, sweet corn and scallion tagliatelle, and farm cuts like thick pork chops ringed in flavorful fat from hogs who spent their days searching out wild hazelnuts, acorns, and probably truffles in the Coastal Mountain foothills.
The Ground opened the Pub in April of 2025. It shares a kitchen with Grounded Table, but offers a more casual, counter-service menu centered around pasture raised barbecue and side dishes. That same year, Schafer was named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific.
Since then, the Ground has grown to offer catering and wellness retreats and now comprises a suite of food and hospitality-focused businesses, including bed-and-breakfast Inn the Ground, two other vacation rentals, a pizzeria and retail store — formerly Park & Main, now called the Ground Market in Carlton — and Stillwater events space in McMinnville.
The announcement arrives on the heels of the news that the Ground has become a majority stakeholder in 46-year-old Portland cafe and catering company Elephants Delicatessen and Frank Foti the company’s new CEO. A new Northwest Portland Elephants location in the Uptown Shopping Center is in the works for 2027.
The decision to close the McMinnville restaurants, says Foti, isn’t tied to the Elephants project, at least not directly.
“These are two very different business decisions,” Foti says. “For more than 3 years, we’ve been looking to enter the Portland market to help sell our food and bolster our catering opportunities. The Ground and Elephants also complement each other in ways that create opportunities for both businesses to grow, reach more customers, and expand what we can offer.”
The decision to close Grounded Table and the Pub comes down to the profitability of the individual businesses. Foti says, “the current restaurant-and-pub model has not proven financially sustainable.” The long term goal is to give the Ground the strongest chance to be successful, and “sometimes that means making tough decisions about places and people we care deeply about.”
Schafer and Uniss will both remain employed at the Ground, offering input on the brand’s culinary projects, and the company will keep both McMinnville storefronts and employ them as private event spaces for ticketed dinners and events.
