Deepening The Roots Gamble Creek Farm

Worden Farm and the Chiles Restaurant Group stand as titans of our local food system. Whether it’s a market basket or a dinner plate they’re filling with freshness, both strive to deepen customers’ connection to what they eat, the geographic source of that sustenance, and the people who produce it. This season, Worden Farm and the Chiles Group have announced a plan to work the earth together at Gamble Creek Farm.

“We share values,” Ed Chiles, chief executive officer of the Chiles Group, says to describe the glue cementing the partnership with Worden Farm co-founders Chris and Eva Worden. “We want to be a part of doing the right things that work within our construct—and our construct is broad, because it’s everything you put in your mouth, you know?”

“It requires visionaries like [Chiles] to bring us to awareness and to take action around issues that affect us all,” Eva Worden says. “He is good-hearted, and he is willing to do what is needed to make this succeed, and so it’s a wonderful opportunity to steward this land in a way that will benefit the environment and the community.”

Chiles made local headlines in 2013 upon signing a five-year lease on 26 acres of Parrish farmland owned by the Florida West Coast Resource Conservation & Development Council Since acquiring the property in 2006, the Council has struggled to get a community-supported agriculture (CSA) harvest subscription program off the ground at Gamble Creek. Spending more than $1 million per year to supply fresh produce to its waterfront restaurants (the Sandbar, Mar Vista, and the Beach House), the Chiles Group launched an ambitious venture in restaurant- supported agriculture. Chiles’s signature awoke the farm from a year-long dormancy with support from Eric and Ryan Geraldson, second- and third-generation farmers who Chiles says will continue to operate the farm as the “lieutenants” executing on the Wordens’ direction.

Over five years, Gamble Creek Farm stirred up great excitement as Chiles restaurant-goers dug into salads with tender greens and tomatoes that had been harvested that very morning. Last year’s growing season opened the farm to the public with a farm stand experiment. Its trial run was an enormous success: Residents from the burgeoning Parrish community streamed in to pick up not only fruits and vegetables, but also farm-fresh eggs, local honey, and a selection of baked goods and desserts from Teddy Louloudes, the Chiles Group’s head baker.

“Teddy probably drove most of that business with his fresh breads,” says Chiles Group Chief Operating Officer Robert Baugh. “We had people every Saturday morning waiting for him to show up with bread and buy him out.”

The stand was only a fraction of Chiles’s dreams for the farm, which has promise to grow into a community hub for events and educational initiatives. Chiles and Baugh also envision a commissary to vertically integrate the farm into the restaurants even further with an ability to process local seafood and expand into food preservation. In the meantime, however, the Wordens will assist in efforts to optimize farm activity for the restaurants.

“We have created a laser focus on crop production for the restaurants, and we will bring our expertise as the farm project continues to develop in the areas of community agriculture activities, like agritourism and educational outreach,” Worden says. Within the first month of the partnership, Gamble Creek Farm went fully organic and initiated a restaurant-to-farm compost program that may build a model for countywide commercial composting.

“Chris and Eva Worden are so into education and the best practices of organic agriculture,” Chiles says. “The chefs are very, very excited about it.”

Of working with the chefs, Worden adds, “They are looking for both staples and unusual crops that will give their guests the opportunity to sample the produce from the farm, whether they have a conservative or adventurous palate.”

The partnership between the Chiles Group and Worden Farm will fill diners’ plates with food that holds more flavor, freshness, nutrition—and story, a vital value shared in this collaboration. Considering that the Chiles Group serves 900,000 meals annually to locals and visitors alike, the Chiles-Worden partnership is shaping a story-sharing platform with global reach.

“There’s so much that’s positive about what happens here in Southwest Florida around food and food production, and those stories need to be told. So, we view this as an opportunity to work with Ed toward that end,” Worden says.

“Collard greens, for example,” she continues. “That’s a traditional Southern favorite, and to let people know about how they’re grown, the seasonality and, for example, the fact that when we’ve had a frost, the collard leaves become sweeter, we give diners a window into the production system.”

“It’s always nice to get a deeper connection to where you live by eating food that has been grown locally,” Worden says. “We’re excited about helping to realize that vision with Gamble Creek Farm.”