By Shari Benyousky
Guest Columnist

Column Note: This is the 43rd column in the Diners and Dives series in which a small group of Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club members and their guests road trip to explore the restaurants of Kosciusko and the surrounding area.

The Surprise

MILFORD — The first spoonful of rich, savory soup brimming with potatoes, kale, and sausage surprised me. Wait. Let’s back up. Drive with me north on SR 15, stop at the little white and blue building at 207 N. Higbee, and open the door of Harvest Coffee and Market.

I know you thought you were just driving through Milford, but here you’ll find fresh, high-quality, homemade soups, sandwiches, pulled pork, and desserts plus friendly people tucked into comfortable mismatched home-style furniture. “The tables all have stories.” Karena patted the tables with affection as she told me how each had come to be here.

Harvest Coffee and Market is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Karena Wilkinson is the director (she laughed and called herself “the head caretaker”).

She grew up in Milford and taught choir at West Noble until one summer her eyes opened to the local needs of young people in Milford, and she threw herself into a partnership with Harvest With a Heart.

“The purpose of Harvest isn’t to make money, although there IS a purpose for Every. Single. Thing,” Karena told me earnestly from behind the counter as she worked alongside her staff.

“The purpose of the good food is to help facilitate conversations and relationships.” Harvest aims to make you feel like you belong. The homemade food definitely helps.

We invited a few wildcards to lunch in Milford to see how the theory worked. REMAX Jeff Owens invited the guests around the table to order from the chalkboard menu on the wall first.

Abby took our orders, patiently clicking her pen on and off as she waited for our decisions (usually you order at the counter FYI). “Pick something good that no one else has ordered,” Jeff told her. “Surprise me.” She brought him a lovely, browned panini with melted cheese.

The Artist

One of our wildcards was Nathan Underneath who is the undeniably vivid owner of the only tattoo studio permitted in the downtown district of Warsaw. Moving Pictures Tattoo Cinema fuses Nathan’s fine art gallery with commissioned art pieces that move out the door with you.

Nathan wears earplugs, nose rings, a mo-hawk-pompadour so high it makes me dizzy, and spectacular art on his skin. He ordered the Harvest Chef Salad.

Nathan was an engineering consultant in the orthopedic industry before morphing into a tattoo artist.

“Creativity was what made me a good engineer.” Nathan pulled up his Moving Pictures Video for us (if you’ve waited for a show at Northpointe Cinema, you’ve seen the mesmerizing ad). “And my engineering training makes me a great tattoo artist. I am trained to solve problems.”

Nathan specialized in micro-measurements and camera systems. Now, he uses this expertise to map the bones and muscles of his clients. “I want the tattoo to move with my clients.”

Nathan illustrated this by pointing at the tattoo on his own arm. “I’m blessed to have clients who trust me to develop the art. Lawyers and teachers and coaches and businesspeople. They come in with the idea, and I create large-scale sleeves and themes.”

Regular Titus Funeral Planner Brittany Lyon licked her lips from the Southwest Burrito and nodded. She and Underneath had already compared notes about people they knew in common who already proudly wore his tattoos.

REMAX Jeff watched Underneath’s video with an impressed expression. He looked up. “I did contemplate what possible connection our Diners and Dives guests had this week. I thought, hmm, a tattoo guy and a food bank guy. I’m not a big rando person. But I did realize that both of you have one thing in common. You both need bread!”

Nathan laughed. Everyone likes to have money to eat.

The Food Bank Director

Our other wildcard was Bill Doege, the director of the Milford Food Bank. Donations of all kinds of food, including bread, are right up his alley. Bill cradled a bowl of homey chicken mac and cheese and sighed contentedly. “Yum! I’ve never had anything bad here at Harvest.”

You can find Doege’s Milford Food Bank at 111 S. James St. It’s a bank, not a pantry though.

Food Banks are huge operations that provide food TO local food pantries. “Bill Troup started the food bank, and still likes to stay involved. We do have a little pantry in front of the shop,” Doege said. “Anyone can take the food. But our operation is less for walk-is and more for places like Serenity House in Warsaw, women’s shelters, soup kitchens, school systems, backpack programs.” He paused.  “We serve from Ohio up to Niles, Mich., and down to Fremont.”

Milford Food Bank serves 130 pantries in 12 counties. Its mission comes from Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Tattoo Artist Underneath leaned across the table. “Do you need volunteers? My team and I would do that.”

Doege grinned. “Yes! We rescue cakes and produce and bread and ham bones. We drive routes to pick up and deliver. I need all different spectrums of volunteers.”

The Food Bank has a 5,000 square foot building. They also fill “every spare empty hole” across the street at Ron Baumgartner’s The Papers facility too.

“Thanks, Ron.” Doege nodded across the table at Baumgartner who was finishing up his bowl of pasta. Ron nodded back.

As we meet more people in Kosciusko through Diners and Dives, the regulars and I are more and more impressed by the community spirit of where we live. The community spirit of Milford is alive and well and committed to helping each other out.

The Food Bank also has a new building site to expand its assistance even further. 
“How much will you need to raise to build on it?” I asked.

“Whew,” Doege shook his head. “Probably at least $800,000.”

If you want to volunteer on a Monday or Friday or send a donation or pass along some bread, you can find out more here. Or, you can visit the Milford Food Bank Open House this coming Saturday – see pictures for details.

The Extra Guest, A Long-Lost Winona Lake Resident

We had a bonus guest with us, a former resident of Winona Lake, Kris Williams who lives near Denver these days.

“One of the things that I most regret,” he had told us earlier in the week. “Is not getting to come on a Diners and Dives while I lived here.” Of course, we invited him if he promised to take a Diners and Dives T-shirt to Denver and send us back the photo — look for that in a future episode.

I asked him if he had any last words for his new friends out west. He looked down at the empty plate of biscuits and gravy he had just finished. “There are lots of great things about the food scene in Denver,” he nodded. “But nobody can make good biscuits and gravy like this!”

If you want to feel like YOU belong, check out Harvest Coffee and Market in Milford and pull up a chair.

Do you know of an interesting place, restaurant, nonprofit, or person that you’d like to see featured in Diners and Dives, Whirlwind Wanderlust Travels, or Profiles Behind the Scenes? Send SB Communications LLC Shari Benyousky an email at [email protected].