Wooden Spoon moves

New facility built around more-than-century-old Michigan barn

Guests enjoy an evening meal in the new Wooden Spoon Restaurant on Friday night. The new facility is built around a pre-1870 barn moved to Gentry from Michigan.
Guests enjoy an evening meal in the new Wooden Spoon Restaurant on Friday night. The new facility is built around a pre-1870 barn moved to Gentry from Michigan.

— In a new facility built around the frame of a pre-1870 barn from Michigan, the Wooden Spoon Restaurant opened for business last week. It’s official opening was on Nov. 15 but a soft opening was held Nov. 14.

The Gentry restaurant moved from its location on the west side of Gentry Blvd. to its new location directly across the highway (a half mile south of the stop light at the intersection of Arkansas Highways 12 and 59).

The menu remains the same but seating capacity has increased slightly to about 110. The new facility includes a party room which seats 40-50 people.

Guests are now seated in a rustic, softly-lit room with a large stone fireplace in the center. The support beams in the restaurant center are the barn’s framework - hand-hewn beams assembled by mortise and tenon joints and held in place with wooden dowels. The old barn was disassembled in Michigan, thoroughly cleaned and reassembled in Gentry, with the rest of the restaurant’s structure built around it.

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The new Wooden Spoon Restaurant is built around a pre-1870 barn moved to Gentry from Michigan.

“We’ve so much appreciated the community and the people,” said restaurant owner Jane Klassen (she and her husband Cam own and operate the popular Gentry restaurant). “People offered to help with the move and others stopped and helped when they saw us moving,” she said.

Evidence of that support was seen on Friday eveningas the restaurant filled to capacity with guests who came out to enjoy a good meal, cooked and prepared entirely from scratch.

Restaurant hours are still 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. on Fridays.

A special grand-opening event is planned for 6 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

News, Pages 8 on 11/23/2011