Cedar’s newest restaurant offers fresh, local dining

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor
Blend an artist’s vision, a chef’s craft, and an entrepreneur’s spirit. Season with family collaboration and community support. The result is Cedar’s long-awaited family restaurant which, when paired with a gold medal-winning winery, lingers deliciously on the palate.
The Cedar Rustic Inn and Longview Winery tasting room, on the site of the former Eddie G’s restaurant in Cedar, opened last month after years of planning by artist and restaurant owner Linda Ackley-Eaker, her son Aaron Ackley, and her husband Alan Eaker — the owner of Longview Winery.

Currently serving breakfast and lunch daily, the new, non-smoking restaurant, run by the management team of Chef Aaron and his wife, Nikki, offers simple but delicious menu items. Breakfast for lighter appetites includes granola, oatmeal, yogurt and fruit cup. Hungrier folk can order pancakes or French toast, or choose from four types of omelets.
“You’ve seen omelets that look like the side of a mountain?” Aaron asks. “They’re cooked eggs wrapped around raw, cold ingredients. That’s not an omelet.” If you sauté your veggies first, like the French do, then add the eggs, Aarons says the eggs will soufflé and develop the flavor of the veggies and meats
“I don’t cook by recipe but by method. Everything cooked by sound method turns out right.”
Lunch items include charbroiled burgers, (“We do just a mean burger”), sandwiches, (the tuna melt is a local favorite), basket lunches of fried chicken or fish, soup of the day, Cedar dogs, and four types of salads. (Try the Thai Chicken Salad with water chestnuts, mandarin oranges and slivered almonds.) All salad dressings, save Italian, are made on the premises.
The “less more often” principle Aaron learned while at the Culinary Institute of America is applied to homemade menu items, such as dressings, coleslaw and soups. Cooking smaller amounts of food as needed produces less waste, Aaron explains, and makes it easier to control the cost and quality of the food. To ensure freshness and to adhere to the family’s philosophy of buying local products, Aaron shops at the Cedar City Market for organic foods, Pleva’s for fresh meats and Buntings Market for smoked menu items, like sausages.
Dinner will soon be served. While waiting for the approved liquor license paperwork to arrive, Aaron is busy putting the finishing touches on his menu of American regional cuisine. He describes mouth-watering entrees of Hudson Valley Pot Roast, Dried Cherry Pork Tenderloin, Perch Fillets, Strip Steak, Whitefish Gratinee, (with tomatoes and onions), Garden Pasta, Spaghetti Salad, Tamales and the “Real Deal” — southern-fried buttermilk chicken. Prices range from $9-$16 per entrée. Dessert lovers will drool and angst over choices like individual upside-down pineapple cakes, blueberry cobbler, peanut butter chocolate pie, and the piece de resistance … Frozen Maple Mousse.
Aaron and Nikki, proud parents of 15-month-old Annabelle, haven’t forgotten their young diners. “We’ve already had a lot of kids and families stop in, says Nikki. “And younger people are moving into the (Cedar) area all of the time.” Their most-requested menu items so far? Tuna melts, chili cheese fries, burgers and onion rings.
Like its menu, the décor is simple and tastefully done. Owner Linda, a bronze sculptor, created the restaurant’s door handle by making a rubber mold of a grapevine trunk and casting it in bronze. Aaron handpicked and logged twenty-two cedar trees from a swamp on Linda’s and Alan’s farm near Gills Pier. Columns of those smooth tree trunks support the porch roof, shading the sidewalk from the restaurant to the winery.
The restaurant’s interior touches are subtle reminders of Linda’s artistry and the family’s strong connections. Cheerful blonde walls meet a floor one could swear is leather, but is actually acid-etched, hand-troweled, poured concrete — a more practical choice. Bronze light fixtures hanging from the 10-foot ceiling were rescued from an old schoolhouse in Traverse City and painstakingly sanded and re-finished by Linda. She also chose the lamps above the leaning bar — with stained glass shades of grape clusters, paying tribute to her husband’s new venture. Prints of American Indians, from her private Edward S. Curtis collection, line the dining room walls. Aaron’s great-grandmother’s crazy quilt and a landscape painted by Nikki’s grandmother are also proudly displayed.
“We’re very interested in keeping everything local, and we used as many people from the county as we could,” Linda says.
The foyer’s carved wooden hostess stand and Scandinavian Hunt cabinet were purchased from the Antique Junction in Cedar. Local artisan B. Miller created the chalkboard depicting pine cones and cedar boughs. Even the locks on the doors were installed by Larry the Locksmith of Cedar.
Not least, they chose building contractor Marty Easling of Easling Construction in Leland to work with them.
“We were very happy with Marty’s ability to get a complicated project done in seven months, from demolition to opening day. I don’t think anyone else would have had the horses to do it.”
Though the original footprint from Eddie G’s was retained, the building was torn down and re-built. Linda’s vision of a three-story, 45 hundred square foot studio/gallery/café became, after several transformations, a single-story restaurant seating 63 with a next-door tasting room for Alan’s winery. An adjoining parcel was purchased later and includes Linda’s bronze foundry and studio.
“Mom is the visionary; she has the vision to get things done,” Aaron says.
“She’s the big dreamer,” Nikki adds, approvingly.
Of his step-dad, Alan, Aaron says, “He’s an entrepreneur at the very core. He’s all about opportunity. He’s been one of our bigger cheerleaders — he’s an eternal optimist!”
Aaron also speaks highly of the village zoning board and of previous Supervisor Al Garvin and current Supervisor Carl Williams, both of whom worked with them and told them what they could and couldn’t do ahead of time.
“I think this is the highest and best use for this corner, and for the community,” Linda says. “The timing was right, the political climate has been right and the economic environment is right.
We chose Cedar because there’s so much opportunity for growth and where we knew we could make a difference,” she adds.
The proof isn’t always just in the pudding.
Next time, we’ll visit the Cedar Rustic Inn’s neighbor, Longview Winery, owned by Leelanau County vintner and winemaker Alan Eaker. The Cedar Rustic Inn, is open for breakfast and lunch, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday thru Saturday and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Inn will open soon for dinner. Proposed hours are Tuesday thru Thursday, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Call 228-2282.