What's Good Here: The Farmer's Shed

When a restaurant’s recipes are so good they are featured on the Food Network, chances are, you’re safe to order anything on the menu and walk away happy.

When The Farmer’s Shed on U.S. 1 was featured on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” in 2010, the show chose to showcase the Lexington restaurant’s shrimp and grits and skillet-fried chicken.

While those items remain top sellers on the diner’s daily rotating menu, Friday’s Jefferson Chicken dish may surpass them in popularity, according to owner and manager Shirley Sease. A recipe created by a former chef at the restaurant, the dish is composed of boneless, skinless chicken breasts that are pounded to perfection and stuffed with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses and wild rice then baked in an olive oil base.

Locals also ask for the liver nips when they’re on the menu, typically in the fall and winter.

“They’re an old German recipe that a lot of Lexington area folks know about and like,” Sease said. “They are bites of beef liver dipped in flour and eggs and water and dropped into a beef broth.”

The menu’s Southern-cooked vegetables are all popular, too – especially the collards – as well as the daily made-from-scratch skillet cornbread.

How did Farmer’s Shed get its start?

The Sease name has long been synonymous with farming across the Midlands.

Sease Farm on Olde Farm Road off U.S. 1 in Lexington started with mainly sweet potatoes and peaches in 1947 with farmers Armand and Roselyn Sease. The couple sold any extra vegetables, as well as cream and eggs, to customers in the Lexington and Columbia areas. Soon, greens were added and became the farm’s main source of income.

In 1970, the couple’s son, Clinton, married Shirley – whose family were also Lexington farmers – and eight years later, the second generation took over the Sease family farm. Before long, the farm was supplying vegetables to Harris Teeter and other markets.

In 1999, Clinton and Shirley opened The Farmer’s Shed as a produce market and garden center. They soon realized a restaurant would be the perfect extension to the business and a way to make the most of their surplus of fresh vegetables and opened the diner portion in 2001.

Today, the couple’s daughter Carrie serves as the restaurant’s main chef and helped the family develop the idea for the farm’s popular “Deceased Farm” corn maze, which has been a fall family tradition in Lexington for more than a decade.

What else?

In addition to a full, daily rotating and seasonally changing menu in the restaurant, Farmer’s Shed also features a large variety of casseroles, dinners and sides to go, the most popular of which is the Shed’s Chicken Crunch – white chicken breasts, celery, almonds, mayo, cream of chicken soup and cheese, topped with crushed Cheez-Its.

Other popular to-go dishes include turkey tetrazzini, baked spaghetti, mac ’n’ cheese, vegetable casseroles (broccoli, tomato-cheddar, etc.) and cornbread salad, a tailgating favorite.

And most folks grabbing a gourmet to-go item don’t fail to grab a pint or larger size of the pimento cheese. Made from Sease’s grandmother’s recipe, the spread includes cheddar cheese and a red pepper hash and is a long-running customer favorite, Sease said.

What does the place look like?

“A lot of people describe it like coming to Grandma’s house for supper,” Sease said.

With interior seating for only 25 to 30, the restaurant is reminiscent of dining on an enclosed porch with a variety of 1950s retro laminate and chrome tables and a mix of wooden chairs. Seating for an additional 25 patrons is available outside on the Shed’s open porch and courtyard area.

Getting back to the restaurant requires a walk through the Farmer’s Shed shop, which is filled with fresh, local vegetables, jarred jams and jellies, and a variety of pots, planters and unique outdoor decor. Making it back to your car without something interesting or appetizing catching your eye for purchase is nearly impossible.

Who eats here?

“We have people who eat here every day – If they’re not here, we worry about them,” Sease said. “We know what they want when they walk in the door.”

The eatery is also still reaping the benefits of its showcasing on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”

“We just had a couple from Minnesota come in and tell us we were their 184th ‘Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’ restaurant,” Sease said.

In addition to the frequent visits from the many faculty and staff from across-the-road Lexington High School, Farmer’s Shed also sees a lot of other area professionals, as well as families looking for home cooking without, well, cooking at home.

Janet Jones Kendall, Special to Go Columbia

This story was originally published August 20, 2015 at 2:55 PM with the headline "What's Good Here: The Farmer's Shed."