Pickle Jar
THROUGH THE PASS
Kevin Lay is in the kitchen, tossing thinly sliced carrots, cauliflower chunks and red onion rings into a bucket of brine. By the end of the day, 20 gallons of the crisp, tangy vegetables will be devoured by ravenous hoards roaming Falmouth’s Main Street.
Since 2013, Pickle Jar has been a bright spot on a rather mundane daytime dining landscape. The colorful, sunlit dining room feels like a homecoming—albeit to a dream home filled with smiling relatives whose only desire is to feed you scrumptious yet healthy meals, day in, day out.
Serving sizzling platters of hash in a skillet, breakfast salads and fruity French toast until 11 A.M., the restaurant does an about-face for lunch, offering up hearty soups, cold “sammies”, and salads that are a meal unto themselves. Whether you’re vegan, gluten free, watching your weight, or unabashedly none of the above, just perusing the menu is enough to make your mouth water. Just try not to moan when a colorful, artfully arranged plate makes its way past your table, eliciting exclamations of delight from your fellow diners. (I’ll have what she’s having.)
“We go for a balance of healthy and trendy,” laughs Ben Gallant. “We entice the ladies with the salads and the men with the fried chicken.” The abundance of organic tofu and quinoa on the menu can be easily accompanied by a side of fries loaded with bacon and pulled pork.
That something-for-everyone ethic can get watered down to generic in less creative places. But at Pickle Jar, it works—customers keep coming back, either for menu fixtures like The Firehouse (a smoked, chili-rubbed boneless pork, pickled carrots, smoked gouda and barbecue sauce sandwich) or the daily and monthly specials that combine the flavors of the season with the whimsy of the chefs.
“A lot of times we’ll come up with that day’s lunch special in the morning while we’re just getting started,” says Kevin. “We like to have fun with it.”
Fun is key when you’re in business with your long-term friends and life partners. Pickle Jar is owned by the husband-wife teams of Casey and Ben Gallant and Liz and Kevin Lay. Ben, Liz and Kevin met freshman year at the Johnson & Wales culinary program, hanging out in the dorm before moving out and moving in with one another. After graduating in the early 2000s, Casey and Ben met, and Liz and Kevin moved on to restaurant gigs in California and Long Island. They stayed in touch, and ended up coming together again at the venerable Misaki in Hyannis. It wasn’t long before the two couples started thinking about owning their own place. That daydream turned into reality when the restaurant across the street from Falmouth Town Hall, which formerly housed the breakfast and lunch spot Laureen’s, became available.
On a street filled with dinner-oriented restaurants, the Gallants and Lays knew they’d have to offer something different. Drawing on their experiences in California and New York, they planned a menu around fresh, seasonal ingredients that honor both the past and the present. The menu nods to Falmouth’s tourist appeal—the Nobska Light (a smoked salmon wrap) and the Road Race Roll (a white bean hummus wrap), and even a lobster roll in the summer months—but this ain’t no tourist trap.
For the four owners, the restaurant’s name sums up their goals: preserving a time-honored tradition while offering a fresh way of thinking about dining. Plus, says Ben, “once we got started, we figured out there’s hardly anything you can’t pickle.”
The proof is in the Mason jar. Not only are the restaurant’s signature pickles served with nearly every dish (not on the pancakes, unless requested!), diners can take them home for $7 a pound. There’s the Kirby Sour, a traditional cucumber dill with garlic and spices; the Mexi-Cali, a brined carrot, jalapeno and onion mixture reminiscent of escabeche; The Garden, featuring anything from radishes to cauliflower and green beans; and Buttons and Olives, a tasty blend of marinated mushrooms, olives and capers.
Pickles find their way into the main courses, as well. We couldn’t pass up the chance to try the strawberry and pickled rhubarb grilled cheese, a delectable blend of aged cheddar and goat cheese with chutney-like rhubarb and fresh, acidic and sweet berries and arugula. Ever since its appearance on Diners, Drive-Thrus and Dives, the restaurant has become famous for its pickle chips, rounds of deep-fried sour dill cukes. “We can tell when the show has been on—we’ll get people driving in the next day from Connecticut or Boston asking for the pickle chips,” says Ben. “They even call asking us if we’ll deliver.” (The answer is no.)
On a recent weekday, the specials included a breakfast salad with tossed arugula in bacon vinaigrette, cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, and two poached eggs. We were treated to a smorgasbord of color and tang. The creamy yolks ricocheted off the spicy, vinegary greens, rounded out by the silkiness of the cheese and smokiness of the bacon. Sopping up the rest with multigrain toast points, we wondered why we don’t always have salad for breakfast—it just feels virtuous. So much so that there seemed no harm in having a little breakfast mimosa, made with St. Elder and graced with an edible pansy. After all, we could have gone for an Ultimate Bloody Mary served with a skewer of (surprise!) pickles.
That combination of virtue and satisfaction is hard to come by on the Cape, especially without breaking the bank. But unlike the experience at other downtown locations, you won’t leave feeling a little too heavy in the stomach and a little too light in the wallet. Case in point: the pastrami spice cured salmon, on the breakfast menu, is $15. But it’s a whole quarter pound of delightfully smoky fish, arranged in a rose shape and crusted with freshly ground spices. Along with a generous dollop of caper cream cheese, this plate would be enough for two—if it weren’t so finger-licking good.
For those who prefer a lighter breakfast (or dessert with every meal), Pickle Jar features classics like vanilla-spiced oatmeal; a red, white, and blue parfait; and pastries cooked up by Liz Lay, aka Butterqueen Cakes, in her East Falmouth kitchen. If all the muffins and scones are scarfed up by the breakfast crowd, there’s usually a pecan square or brownie left in the cookie jar to end lunch on a sweet note.
The contrast of homespun and trendy, old-fashioned and modern is evident in everything from Pickle Jar’s menu to the decor: the main dining room features a picture of the Weeks Building in which you stand, circa 1906, and a collection of antique egg beaters and other kitchen implements, mostly donated by customers. A so-called “art wall” rotates monthly with various local artists.
If you’re lucky enough to score a window seat, settle in among the plants on a sun-warmed bench and watch the world go by—or be part of the bustle on Main Street with a table for two on the patio. More than likely you’ll spot someone you know and end up joining their table for a chat—it’s just that kind of neighborly place. Pickle Jar is also a great place to dine solo, perched on a diner stool and chatting up the waitstaff as smells of pulled pork, orange zest and—mmmm— fried pickles, waft from the kitchen.
Pickle Jar
170 Main Street, Falmouth
508-540-6760 / picklejarkitchen.com
