Love, Lamb and Anchovies: Hillsboro Couple Launches Catering Business With Local Focus

Reid Badger cooked Alison Badger dinner on their second date when they first met.

‘What don’t you like?’ he inquired. Lamb, anchovies and olives were on my list of ingredients. Lamb provencal (lamb with olives and anchovy) was on the menu, so Alison accepted his invitation to dine with him. My favourite memory of our second date was the delicious meal he prepared for us. Ten months after that, we got married… You should give the lamb a try!

For the past six months, the Badgers have been serving up local lamb and other local delicacies to hungry western Loudouners. Their multi-course Friday night to-go dinners have become the talk of the town in Hillsboro since they opened at the end of 2021. The former Dinner Belle’s Kitchen in downtown Lovettsville was the official new home of the company as of last month.

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Reid Badger, a Culinary Institute of America grad and former executive chef of The Club at Creighton Farms who stepped down in August after a decade in the position, saw the pandemic as an opportunity to shake things up. Finally, after a decade of working for private club owners, he decided to start his own company.

Badger said, “The time had come, no matter what.” Because of this, I can be a specialist, which is difficult to do in the private club industry. To succeed, “You must do everything.”

They chose the name “Badger” as a tribute to their idyllic farmette in Between the Hills near Hillsboro, where the Badgers and their 13-year-old daughter reside. Farm-to-table cooking and a desire to use local ingredients in their new business were sparked by living in western Loudoun, where small family farms are on the rise again.

Alison explained that the company got off to a good start by providing takeout dinners on Friday nights for “super staunch regulars from restaurant-lacking Hillsboro. Word is getting out, and they regularly sell out their menus, which include dishes like this week’s, which includes salads like spinach and apple, polenta and mushroom gratin, roast porchetta from Lovettsville’s Long Stone Farm, Italian style green beans, and a lemon and olive oil cake. As a result of the Badgers’ collaborations with local bed and breakfasts, patrons can now pre-order meals for pickup on Friday evenings.

Reid Badger worked out of Chefscape’s shared kitchen for the first six months of his new business. When Michelle McIntyre, the owner of Dinner Belle’s Kitchen in downtown Lovettsville, told him she was cutting back on her catering business and invited him to check out the space, he realised it was a perfect fit.

We were expanding and this provided just the right amount of expansion for us,” Badger said.

Prior to attending the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, Reid Badger spent two years at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“I’ve always had a deep desire to cook,” he said. Before joining Creighton Farms in 2012, Badger found his calling as executive chef at The City Clubs of Washington.

Reid and Alison first met because they shared a house in Alexandria’s Del Ray neighbourhood and were neighbours. Now that they’ve been married for 17 years, the couple is looking forward to starting a company together.

For Alison, who will continue working as a project coordinator for the Town of Hillsboro while also running the administrative side of the family business, “We complement each other,” she said.

Alison was the one who persuaded Reid to take a different path when he was suffering from burnout last year.

“This was all started because of Alison… “I really needed a break,” he said. “She pushed me to be independent.”

Alison is a project manager by trade, but her true calling has always been cooking. She studied archaeology at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She spearheaded the Hillsboro Old Stone School’s farm-to-table dinner fundraiser series and has built relationships with numerous western Loudoun farms. Lovettsville’s Long Stone is a favourite, but she hopes to source from family farms around the county for the new business.

We try to spread the good vibes, she explained.

And while Between the Hills focuses on local products for its Friday night dinners, the Badgers are flexible with catering for clients at a range of budgets and source from broad-line food vendors too.

The Badgers are introducing themselves to the Lovettsville community and will reopen the retail space in June with family meals, frozen items, cheeses, speciality items, beer and wine.

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They are, however, firmly rooted in Hillsboro, Oregon, the community they call home. The Hillsboro Old Stone School’s literary talk featuring Nora Pouillon on Saturday will be catered with locally sourced light fare. At Hillsboro’s early Independence Day celebration on June 26, the Badgers will be selling Reid’s famous homemade bratwurst and other items.

“We’re working hard, and we’re having a great time,” Reid said.