By Tom Ayres, Senior Staff Writer
The proposed “farm-to-fork” restaurant at Peace Field Farm on Pomfret Road in Woodstock is moving closer to opening following nearly five years of legal wrangling before municipal and state regulatory bodies and the Vermont Superior Court, Environmental Division, commonly known as the Environmental Court.
Armed with a ruling issued last August by Environmental Court Judge Thomas Walsh that the proposed eatery qualifies for an agricultural exemption from the state’s Act 250 land use permitting process as an accessory on-farm business (AOFB), Peace Field developer John Holland and his farmer/restauranteur partner, Woodstock native Matt Lombard, are working toward an early summer opening for the restaurant, which they plan to operate four evenings per week from Thursday through Sunday.
A liquor license for the Peace Field Farm restaurant is currently in process with the Vermont Division of Liquor Control. The Woodstock Town Selectboard gave its assent to the issuance of the license at its meeting on Tuesday evening, Jan. 20. Under current Vermont regulations, local governing bodies no longer have automatic veto or licensing authority independent of state statute; their role is limited to conditions tied to local ordinances, not broad approval authority. In a phone conversation on Monday, Lombard said he is awaiting a site visit from an inspector with the liquor control division, after which he hopes the state will issue a permit expeditiously. Assuming that the license is indeed issued, Lombard said he hopes to offer several “themed” dinners on select evenings during the transitional period between late February and the Peace Field restaurant’s formal opening, most likely in June.
One issue regarding the Peace Field restaurant remains open before the Environmental Court — and it’s unrelated to the AOFB ruling that Walsh issued last summer. Tom Meyerhoff and Cynthia Volk, Peace Field neighbors and longtime opponents of the proposed on-farm restaurant, are appealing the permit for the restaurant that was issued by then-Woodstock zoning administrator Stephanie Appelfeller on June 20 of last year. The issuance of the permit was authorized by the Woodstock Town Development Review Board (TDRB) three weeks prior on May 27, 2025, when the quasi-judicial municipal board granted site plan approval and a conditional use permit to Peace Field to operate a restaurant in a large, red, barn-like structure at the Pomfret Road site.
In filing the appeal with the Environmental Court on behalf of Meyerhoff and Volk last June, attorney Christopher Boyle of Lincoln argued that the zoning permit issued by Woodstock “if confirmed, will not be in accord with the policies, purposes, or terms of the Woodstock Town Plan and the Town of Woodstock Zoning regulations.” Boyle also contended that the TDRB’s decision to grant the Peace Field permit under zoning regulations revised in November 2024 to eliminate a square-footage size cap for a restaurant building on a farm in the town’s R-5 zoning district constituted “unconstitutional and illegal spot zoning” that solely favors Peace Field Farm. Meyerhoff/Volk counsel Boyle, Holland/Lombard attorney Anthony LaRosa of Burlington, and Woodstock town officials have exchanged legal filings regarding the latest appeal for the past seven months. Environmental Court judge Walsh has slated another conference hearing for all the litigants for Monday, Feb. 9.
Last Friday, Holland spelled out Peace Field Farm’s “operating framework,” sharing a memo he sent to Janet Hurley, the chair of the Vermont Land Use Review Board (LURB), in the wake of Walsh’s AOFB ruling last August. “Following the Environmental Court’s ruling, Peace Field has decided to move forward with a compliance plan that meets both our state and local permits,” Holland said in the LURB memo written jointly with Lombard. “The plan is based on two main documents: the ‘farming’ exemption from Act 250, which states that meals must be 51% by weight or volume from ingredients grown on the farm, and our local Town of Woodstock Development Review Board (TDRB) permit, which requires our menu to ‘feature’ farm-produced items. Since its founding in 2018, Peace Field Farm has gradually developed into a diversified agricultural system that includes beef cattle, swine, poultry, forage, and vegetables,” Holland and Lombard continued. “This balanced approach not only improves the farm’s resilience but also ensures that most proteins and vegetables served in our on-farm restaurant are farm-produced, meeting and exceeding the 51% threshold.”
Holland and Lombard have laid out an ambitious plan for the future of the farm that is tied to the farm-to-fork restaurant concept, as well as to providing a range of agricultural products to Lombard’s Santé bistro on Central Street in Woodstock Village and other dining spots in the area.
The future of Lombard’s other restaurant at 61 Central Street, the high-end eatery Mangalitsa, is uncertain. That restaurant has been shuttered for the past 46 months while undergoing a major renovation and upgrade project. Lombard and Holland both said they are devoting the bulk of their efforts and resources in the coming year to getting the Peace Field Farm restaurant up and running smoothly.
Lombard is actively raising and managing a breeding herd of 24 purebred Black Angus and Angus-Shorthorn cross cattle at Peace Field Farm, with plans to increase the herd to 40 animals later this year. There are presently 70 Mangalitsa and Berkshire pigs on the farm, with that number projected to eventually reach 90. The pair also expect to reintroduce a flock of 150 hens to the farm in the coming year. Additionally, the farm’s grass-fed livestock system depends on an intensive haying program that emphasizes forage quality, producing 160,000 pounds of hay each year. Lombard and Holland also note that the farm has steadily grown two acres of vegetables, with a strong focus on fall-harvested storage crops, producing 25,000 pounds of vegetables annually.
Lombard spoke with the Standard on Monday morning from the snow-covered farm regarding opening plans for the new restaurant. “It’s probably more like June or July before we are fully open, so that we can have cash flow,” he noted. “But meanwhile, through the springtime, we will offer a series of themed dinners, largely focused on proteins raised on the farm and then transitioning into vegetables and produce during the growing season. For example, we might have a ramen night or a burger night or something of that sort. These are ways to slowly build awareness and break in the space.”
Lombard added that Peace Field hopes to host the first “themed dinner” at the restaurant in late February or early March. “We would do something small — I envision it being mostly for community members who are interested,” he offered. “I just want to ease into it, dependent upon the liquor license. I have a staffing model in place that allows me to simultaneously operate Peace Field and Santé, which is important to me. The staffing efforts that are taking place now are focused on developing a growing team, a garden team, to more effectively manage that aspect of things.” Lombard added that he anticipates ramping up hiring of serving and kitchen staff in the spring as well.
Speaking about the struggles of the past five years — attempting to get the Peace Field eatery permitted and operating, opening Santé, and shutting down Mangalitsa for a significant reinvention effort — Lombard was reflective.
“The farm is a remarkable operation, and I think that it deserves to have all of this come to fruition,” he noted. “It’s so rewarding to me after all this time. I just hope it’s for real – I’m gun-shy about committing. We just continue working hard, growing the farm operation.”
What about Mangalitsa and Santé?
Both Holland and Lombard were circumspect about the future of the Mangalitsa restaurant on the second floor of 61 Central Street, upstairs from the Santé bistro. They cited the “extraordinary” amount of financial resources and personal effort they’ve put into the Peace Field and Santé projects as factors that will affect what becomes of the shuttered, high-end eatery.
“You’re going to get annoyed because you keep hearing this from me,” Holland told the Standard last Friday. “But we’re trying to keep everything funded, so we’re picking away at this. There are not endless supplies of money in this world. The entire kitchen is done. We need to install the appliances, the furniture for the dining area. It’s almost an $80,000 bill to get funded.”
For his part, Lombard offered, “When all this began — even Mangalitsa in its original form — it was as a way of trying to make sense of continuing to farm. Now that Peace Field has been granted its agricultural exemption — and because it’s a complete restaurant and ready to operate — I feel inclined to focus most of my energy on this project versus the upstairs space in town. I think we’re probably open to looking at other options for what happens with that space, whether it finds a new tenant or whether I use it in a more limited capacity.
“Peace Field is ready to go and that’s what our whole model and vision is based on. Santé will continue. That concept will continue to evolve. It will see some renovation eventually. But the energy around getting a second outlet operating for me is going to become focused back on the farm, because that’s what it’s all about,” Lombard concluded.