Rustic Spoon
Earlier this year, a new restaurant came to Topeka, Indiana, and Rustic Spoon has proven to be more popular than owners Steven and Jolene Bontrager could have imagined.
Steven Bontrager has worked in the RV industry for the past 30 years, but when the owner of the previous restaurant at 5990 W. 200 South decided to sell, the opportunity to open their own restaurant piqued the Bontragers’ interest.
“My wife started looking into names for the restaurant and tossing around ideas. She liked Rustic Spoon. We repainted the entire interior, but for the most part, this old building has been here for years, and it’ll look familiar to those who come in and have a look around,” Steven Bontrager says.
One major change customers will see is the menu, and it appears the Bontragers have the community’s approval.
“Right now, we’ve got smashburgers, which seem to be pretty popular, and we offer a soup and salad bar, which I’ve been told has never been here before, so that’s brand new,” Bontrager says. “We don’t have a big breakfast menu, but we do have a great breakfast smashburger. It’s got two sausage patties, egg, bacon and spicy bacon jam on it.”
Breakfast also includes biscuits and gravy, eggs and more.
Lunch and dinner selections include pulled pork sandwiches, a variety of appetizers and ice cream for dessert.
It’s not uncommon to find Steven behind the grill, but the Bontragers are also making it a point to train all employees in all positions.
“We rotate employees, so everyone knows the whole system. In the evenings, I’m often on the grill or the fryer; I’m back in the kitchen, and we’re probably going to put some employees in the kitchen if that’s their strength, but for the most part, we’re aiming for everyone to be able to step into any position needed,” Bontrager says.
They’re just getting started, and Bontrager says it’s hard to say what the future holds. However, for the time being, they have everything they can handle and will continue listening to customers and trying to meet their expectations.
“We are starting the process of adding pizza to the menu. We’re not quite there yet, but I imagine this spring we’ll offer pizza,” Bontrager says.
They’re also considering a scheduling change to their opening hours.
“We’ve been open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but I think we’re going to change that a bit to opening at 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays,” Bontrager says.
Most of all, Bontrager says when he and Jolene chose to open Rustic Spoon, he couldn’t have imagined all the positives that would come of it.
To start, Rustic Spoon doesn’t yet have a website or Facebook page; however, that hasn’t stopped the customers from coming.
“It’s been a lot of word of mouth. Our landlord has sent a lot of people this way, and I know people are posting about us on Facebook,” Bontrager says. “Our biggest advertiser at the moment is our customers.”
The experience has also brought people closer together — neighbors meeting neighbors and a community supporting a small local business.
“It’s more than what we’d hoped for. We’ve received so much positive feedback, and it’s just been huge. I expected things to start a lot slower.
We have 18 employees or so and need every one of them because it’s just so busy,” Bontrager says. “We’ve also met a lot of new people that don’t live far from us, and we’d never met them before. That’s the fun part to me. We enjoy visiting with people and learning more about them.”
For more information or to check on operating hours, call 260-214-5044.
