At the end of the basketball season, Chris Cassidy invited the basketball team he coached to a barbecue at his home in Burlington. He's your typical grill guy. Burgers and hot dogs and something to wash it down with. But that day a young player he knew joined them, and he didn't leave empty-handed.
“He had a box full of spices and marinades,” Cassidy said, and soon prepared a feast of delicious steaks, potatoes and vegetables. “I think, wow,” Cassidy recalled, “pretty impressive for a high school senior.”
“His pantry was a little boring,” laughed Solomon Bayer-Pacht, remembering the event. He sat in the barn of the Old Lantern Inn on Greenbush Road, surrounded by skeletons and goblins, not his usual companions but regalia from the Monster Bash cancer charity event a few days away.
As he began describing his plans for the space, it seemed a little surreal that just a decade ago, the Farmers & Foragers co-founder didn't know how to light the burners on his first food truck.
Earlier this year, Bayer-Pacht purchased the barn (the previous owners, the Gaujacs, kept the inn), renamed it the Old Lantern Event Barn and planned to convert the 19th-century building into a full-fledged event venue. Planned renovations include a deck and patio to better utilize the expansive grounds with hiking trails.
“We will host weddings and possibly funerals, Wednesday dinners and Sunday brunches, music events and even a Christmas mass,” he said.
The church in Hinesburg, where Bayer-Pacht lives, is too small; the barn can accommodate up to 750 people.
Bayer-Pacht and his longtime manager Geoff Whelan took over the Old Lantern on May 16 and hosted the first wedding two weeks later. They don't cling to tradition. Recently, three llamas were used as beer dispensers at a wedding reception. Bayer-Pacht said he wanted the venue to be “a gathering place” and a place where “someone, whether they spend a dollar or not, has a good time and enjoys the space.”
The acquisition of the Old Lantern Barn is a natural progression for Bayer-Lacht and a solution to a food truck catering problem. After launching his rolling diner “Farmers & Foragers” with his partner Lauren Johnson in 2014, Bayer-Pacht quickly realized that he would not be able to serve the planned event when the truck broke down. So a second truck soon followed. It would be better to have a stationary location, he thought.
To finance the acquisition of the Old Lantern, Bayer-Pacht attracted nine investors, including Cassidy, who now runs the Trust Company of Vermont, and Lynette Raap, who founded Gardeners Supply Co. with her late husband, Will. The Raaps were close friends with Solomon's parents, Judge John Pacht and Andrea Bayer, both lawyers.
But that wasn't the reason why the Raaps invested. “First, it was the quality of his character,” said Addison Raap, her son, “and second, he believed that he was a solution-oriented guy who would draw people to him and motivate them to achieve his vision.”
Bayer-Pacht will be the first to tell you that it took many years to become an overnight success. “There were a lot of moments,” he said, “when I was driving home in the food truck in the first few years where I asked myself, 'What the hell did I get myself into?'”
The house in Hinesburg where Bayer-Pacht lives is next to his parents' house, where he grew up. He attended the Lake Champlain Waldorf School and friends say he was unusually confident as a young boy. Kenny Peck, a family friend who taught a film course at the now-defunct Burlington College, invited 9-year-old Solomon to speak to his class and he amazed them with his knowledge of cinema. At South Burlington High School, he was captain of the basketball team.
His precocity may explain why he has many older friends, some of whom are contemporary friends of his parents. “Solomon has an old soul,” said one of these cohorts. A frequent golf and fantasy football buddy is Larry Sommers, whose wife, Joanne Bayer-Pachts, was a kindergarten teacher.
“As an adult, he told me that kindergarten shaped his respect and attention to food,” Joanne said. The Sommers throw a party every July 4th. “Despite all the demands on his time,” Larry said, “Sol always shows up.”
Speaking of parties: Bayer-Pacht is also known for its annual Super Bowl party. About 30 friends flock to his parents' house and enjoy gourmet snacks that don't come in plastic bags or jars. Lots of gray hair among the curated hairstyles of the young and restless.
The other big topic in Bayer-Pacht's life, besides food, is basketball. He was a standout at South Burlington High School, where the 6-foot-2 forward was captain and a favorite of coach Mike Kennedy's mother.
“My mother grew up in Bradford where she believed the kids were a lot tougher than the kids from South Burlington,” Kennedy explained. “Solomon was the only player she thought was strong enough to play for Bradford.”
After his playing days, Bayer-Pacht began coaching and eventually replaced Kennedy, at Kennedy's request, as head coach at South Burlington High, where he is entering his twelfth season. For a brief time, he considered making coaching his career, but was unsure if he could handle the pressure, considering that he would have to recruit kids at the college level and that game results were putting a strain on him.
“And there would be a lot of stress because I hate losing and I want to give my kids the best chance to be successful,” Bayer-Pacht said.
To paraphrase a famous malapropism: He found a fork in the road and took it. That fork could be at Farmers & Foragers, the food truck company he founded with his partner, University of Vermont graduate Lauren Johnson.
Their first rolling establishment was a converted old FedEx truck. The two of them were so green, said Bayer-Pacht, they didn't know how the burners worked. With some mentoring from Luke Stone of The Hindquarter and Stefano Cicirello, who transformed the Dolce VT food truck into the very popular Poco Restaurant, the amateurs became smart and successful professionals.
Farmers & Foragers also now has a brick-and-mortar dockside restaurant at the Burlington Harbor Marina, open four months of the year starting Memorial Day weekend. But as Bayer-Pacht put it: Four months is fine, but it's only four months.
When Lisa and Roland Gaujac put the barn on the market, Bayer-Pacht saw a lantern at the end of his tunnel.
He's a guy who constantly talks about community the way some people talk about Nutella. His family, his friends, his basketball players, and even people he just met shape his idea of community. And for him, the Old Lantern represents an excellent opportunity to realize this goal.
“We need community, we need to trust and love each other again,” said Bayer-Pacht. “We're pretty clear on that in general here. I think we need a meeting place that can host a variety of events from live music to panel discussions on climate or organic farming.”
“And most importantly: have fun.”