Brunch and a bunch more

At Farmhouse Inn and Kitchen, Brandi Peerman strives for “home cooking.”

For one, the inspiration for the menu comes straight from her family’s passed-down Czech recipes.

“When I grew up we would have like 150 people at our house on the weekends, that was really common. My mom would make everything herself from scratch, so I just used those recipes because they always worked really well with groups of people. They’re crowd-pleasers,” she said.

And as a mother of four, she knows the Farmhouse kitchen will often be her family kitchen as well, she says.

“Our four kids are home schooled and they eat here all the time, so I knew if I had a restaurant my kids would eat there all the time, and I don’t want them eating food I wouldn’t feed them at home,” she said.

Farmhouse opened in June in the former Whitefish Hostel building on Lupfer Avenue.

Peerman said she and her husband originally purchased the building with the intent of running it as just a bed-and-breakfast, but the popularity of the café space was too good to pass up.

“We had the café downstairs, so we decided to go and open it as a restaurant,” she said. “The café was kind of an afterthought, but it turned out to be pretty profitable.”

The café serves breakfast items like Czech crepes, breakfast sandwiches and yogurt berry bowls, along with a collection of pastries.

For lunch they offer soups, salads and sandwiches, like turkey club, Italian, BLT and grilled cheese pesto.

And while breakfast had previously been available from 8 to 11 a.m., Peerman said hours have extended to 11:30 to accommodate some of her customers that prefer to sleep in just a little longer.

The ingredients are key for Peerman, as is the history behind the dishes.

While she estimates more expensive food costs than other restaurants in the area, she said the investment is worth it.

“We don’t use a lot of prepackaged or canned foods. Everything is very homemade and from scratch, with lots of organic ingredients,” she said. “We make everything with old recipes. Our gravy, our biscuits — all those are handed down. Almost everything on our menu is old family recipes.”

For the overnight guests, Farmhouse offers three guest rooms, each with a full bathroom and supplied with the Peermans’ own homemade soaps and bath products.

The bath products are made at their farm outside of town, she said.

“The guest rooms are definitely more higher-end, and they have really nice finishings. They’re very clean, cleanliness is super important to us. And also the handmade bath products, you don’t usually get that,” she said. “We use organic ingredients, botanicals from our farm, goat milk, things like that.”

So far the business has been booming for Farmhouse, which also caters and hosts parties and events in the courtyard behind the building.

Peerman said she’s already getting booked into next September, and she’s up to 10 employees at the business.

When it comes to hiring, Peerman said she wants Whitefish locals who are here to stay, and she wants to help keep it that way.

“We try to hire longtime locals, because I think they care more about their service and their reputation in the community, and we try to pay really well and take good care of them so they’re able to live in Whitefish too,” she said. “It’s expensive to live here.”

Farmhouse is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. More information is available at www.thefarmhouseinnandkitchen.com.