In The Club
Greensburg’s newest restaurant features an exclusive farm-to-table dining room.
By Victoria Bradley | Photography by Megan Wylie Ruffing

My first step into the historic train station echoes off of the high, arching ceilings and along the sprawling walls. Sunlight slices in through the tall gaping windows, spilling across the floors like spotlights in a dance studio. The room is so beautiful; it could be a museum. Actually, it’s Greensburg’s newest restaurant, The Supper Club.

The dining room splays out on either side with primly dressed, double-sided dark wood booths, set with elegant place settings, complete sleek silverware and petite bouquets of fresh flowers. In the center of the room, a stout and handsome bar stocks up, housing a well-dressed bartender who towels off glasses with quick flicks of his wrist.

Deb Driggers, one of the restaurant’s owners, appears from the back, smiling and raising her arms, as if to say, “Look at this place.” She swats my cheek with a kiss and offers me the grand tour of the station that was built in 1911. She first shows off an intimate banquet room to the right. Its centerpiece is a deep glass-topped table, filled with dried beans, legumes, and noodles: a conversation piece that the owners made themselves. We swing into the bright kitchen, pristinely clean, and buzzing with a dozen or so cooks, prepping for dinner. The room smells sweetly of peanut brittle. A tall silver bar wraps around the kitchen and is set for dinner, with bright white napkins and girth-y wine goblets. It’s one of the most intimate chef ’s tables I’ve ever seen, right on top of the action.

Chef Greg Andrews produces snacks from the gastro pub menu, which features casual fare that’s a little bit edgy. I fork some chorizo mac ‘n’ cheese, with locally made Orecchiette from Fede Artisan Pasta, oozing with Cheddar and stringing with Swiss. I chomp into a slice of house-made hand-tossed pizza with Brie cheese, warm pears, peppery arugula, and sweet balsamic reduction. Driggers and I share spicy roasted pork tacos, juicing with pineapple pico de gallo and crunching with fresh cabbage slaw.

We continue our tour, and the last stop is my favorite: a farm-to-table room. The quaint tables are covered with rustic-looking brown paper and are backed with dark church pews, antique finds from Construction Junction. There are old chemistry chests, converted into wine cabinets, and the walls are covered with canvas prints that Driggers took herself: piles of cherries, bouquets of carrots, and bundles of asparagus — a pictorial love letter to seasonal food. In this room, the menu changes weekly, based on what’s available locally. Exploding with excitement, I make a

reservation to return the following Friday.

I don a vintage black dress as a nod to the landmark when I come back for dinner. This time, the lights are dim. The sun is setting, painting the floor with what Shakespeare would have called “patines of bright gold.” The hostess observes the note that my reservation is for farm-to-table, and I nearly float as she escorts me and my date into the rustic room, now populated by quiet-talking diners, undoubtedly musing over the this-minute menu. Real foodies.

First, we are served the artisanal cheese board, with a rousing blue cheese from God’s Country farm in Ulysses, Pa. There’s a creamy and mild baby Swiss from Mountain Meadows in Richfield, Pa., sharp aged Cheddar from Royr Mountain, Pa., and sheep’s milk cheese from Clover Creek Cheese Cellar in Williamsburg, Pa. We take turns dipping them in honey, balsamic reduction, and rhubarb compote. There are crackers on the board that barely get any love; the cheese is too good.

Chef Greg describes each cheese lovingly, motioning with his hands as he points out flavor profiles and extols the farms from which each came.

Greg’s wife, and the restaurant’s manager, Ashlee, comes by the table. Her eyes gleam as we gush over the cheese. “This is how it’s done,” she says. “It’s local. It’s sustainable. It’s organic.”

Our second course is inventive: housemade sourdough waffles, sopping in country gravy and topped with a crunchy panko breaded chicken breast. It feels like farm food, for sure. Front porch food. Sunday dinner food.

A Romaine wedge comes next. The farmfresh greens taste like summer: One of the few lettuces that can take the heat, each leaf crunches with the sweetness of afternoon sun, coolly irrigated by evening rain. Salt washes in with white slivers of anchovies and generous amounts of garlic. The salad is lacquered with the Chef ’s own Caesar dressing. My favorite is the hunk of Parmesan toast underneath. I crack a little off with each bite, cutting and rationing my own croutons.

The entrees are sublime. Seared sea scallops swim in basil broth, muddled with sautéed kohlrabi and curly Maitake mushrooms. Crisp Yukon Gold potatoes add irresistible texture juxtaposition.

My Delmonico is perfect. The grass-fed beef from Friendship Farms in Lycippus, Pa., tastes clean, with a unique tang. The cut is so lean, in fact, that I repeatedly smatter the steak with black pepper compound butter to bring out that thick meaty flavor. I poked at a fresh side of heirloom tomato salad and spear the richest roasted fingerling potatoes I’ve ever tasted, creamy and sweet.

After dinner, we segue upstairs to the wine loft that overlooks the restaurant, now blanketed with twilight. I sip La Prima Espresso and spoon Chef Greg’s “peanut butter and jelly” dessert: homemade preserves, homemade ice cream, and homemade cookies.

The chef comes up to join us and we get to talking about his passion for the farm-totable movement. “It’s the just right thing to do,” he says. “This isn’t a new thing. We’re going back to the way it used to be done, the way it’s supposed to be done.” And then, a train rumbles by, thundering in agreement.

The Supper Club, 101 Ehalt St., Greensburg. 724.691.0536. www.supperclubgreensburg.com