Visiting Randall’s on the Orchard kind of reminds you of the television show Cheers, such is the warmth and camaraderie you encounter at this restaurant, opened by chef Randall Maurer in August 2011. You may, like Norm and Cliff, sit at the large bar to catch a game on one of the four televisions, but know this: Randall’s is not the kind of place where you can dine anonymously. Sooner or later, everybody knows your name. And yes, they’re always glad you came.
In Fall 2007, chef Maurer sold his stake in Henry’s Salt of the Sea in Allentown, where he’d been part owner. After working what he describes as “six days a week for 14 hours a day for 21 years,” he was ready for something else. Maurer didn’t put any pressure on himself to figure out ahead of time what, exactly, that something else would be.
“Business people I knew kept telling me I had to have a plan. That was my mistake. I didn’t make a plan,” he says.
So, with a non-compete agreement limiting his employment opportunities as an executive chef, Maurer did something different. Some months later, in mid-2008, he took a 40-hours-a-week job at Wegmans in Allentown as the team leader in the prepared foods section. Loyal customers followed him from Henry’s to Wegmans; during his tenure he says he doubled customer volume in that station. He stayed there up until a month before he opened Randall’s on the Orchard, a restaurant that maintains the same warm, welcoming spirit for which the 59-year-old chef is known.
The original structure dates to the 1850s and started as an old hotel...
The building itself has undergone multiple iterations over the years. The original structure dates to the 1850s and started as an old hotel and “maybe a stagecoach stop,” Maurer says. It was reputedly called the Hillside Inn, then the Queen Victoria Hotel, and then for about 20 years a place called House of Strawberries, followed by—more recently—the Applewood Grill. The name stems from the restaurant’s position overlooking what used to be the Schantz Orchard, currently owned by David Jaindl. As you might expect, the Orchard Room, named for its view and situated to the right of the bar, is the most requested space and fills up quickly.
However, much of the orchard has been decimated recently, save for two rows of apple trees. Everyone at Randall’s was surprised. For now, the view remains.
In the past decade or so, the restaurant had changed hands so many times that, “when we opened, we had no customer base,” Maurer says. The situation was actually a blessing: he and the staff did not have to contend with any built-in expectations about what kind of service or cuisine they ought to provide. Instead, people in the Orefield area simply wanted an affordable, reliable restaurant, and they happened not only to get that, but a chef who is a known quantity in the Lehigh Valley. “We thought, ‘let’s put together our format and grind it out,’ and that’s what we’ve done,” Maurer says.
Maurer’s roots in the Valley run deep, speaking from a culinary perspective, and they are humble. As a teenager growing up near Coopersburg, he worked as a golf caddy by day and dishwasher by night at the Locust Valley Country Club. “I got to taste sirloin and lobster tail,” he says, his eyes widening at the thought. Soon enough, at 15 he was working until 1 a.m. on school nights. Like many young adults who are good with their hands and encounter their vocations early, academics did not really captivate him the way the rhythms of kitchen life did. “I thought, ‘I don’t care, I’m going to be a chef,’” he recalls.
Maurer describes his cuisine as “retro continental,” with classic dishes pulled from the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
During high school, he took at job at the Century House restaurant in Hatfield, where he quickly moved up through the ranks, so much so that by the time he graduated high school, he was promoted to assistant chef. And then a few years later, in the early 1970s, the accomplished German chef Horst Herold came to work at the Century House and began to mentor Maurer. “He taught me just about everything,” Maurer says. And he means everything—from the food to the business side of things. He had a lot of polish,” Maurer says.
Maurer describes his cuisine as “retro continental,” with classic dishes pulled from the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Think steak au poivre, herb-encrusted lamb chops, veal saltimbocca, and calf’s liver with caramelized onions and applewood smoked bacon. Randall’s is also the kind of place with something on the menu for everyone. It’s also the kind of place where you can still get a potato and vegetable du jour with your entrée—something that certainly still has a cachet for diners. Another old-school move? The portion sizes. “To-go boxes are a hot commodity around here,” says Kelli Bartholomew, manager. As for the cuisine, here’s how Maurer sees it: “Horst Herold used to say, ‘I don’t care if crepes are in and quiche is out. We’re going to do what we do best.’ And that’s how I operate my kitchen. These traditional dishes will stay forever,” he says.
As you might expect from a chef who worked at Henry’s Salt of the Sea for 21 years, the menu at Randall’s features plenty of seafood and fish selections. (Dishes topped with fresh crabmeat are especially popular.) You’ll see the lobster Française, with a classic beurre blanc—a holdout from Henry’s. And you’ll want to order anything in the Chesapeake style. “It doesn’t matter what the fish is. It always sells by the truckload,” he says. For example, that evening’s special, a pan-seared barramundi Chesapeake was served with mushrooms, tomatoes, and scallions in a lemon white wine sauce. And something he says he took from Wegmans and then tweaked to make his own, a cedar plank salmon dish, “sells like crazy,” he says.
“That’s just the way Randy is. He’s everybody’s best friend.”
Anyone who has dined at Henry’s knows that dinner is theater—you can see your meal being prepped. Maurer’s loyal customers have grown accustomed to the transparency of that kitchen—and the accessibility to the chef himself. “People are always saying, ‘tell Randy I said hi.’ That door, though, isn’t really much of a barrier. He still comes out, even in his dirty chef’s whites,” says Bartholomew, laughing. “That’s just the way Randy is. He’s everybody’s best friend.”
Despite the fact that the space is easily triple the capacity of Henry’s (it seats about 130, he estimates) Randall’s still feels comfortable and familial, especially for its regulars. “I’ve been lucky; people have followed me and still want to eat my food,” he says. In a business that’s loaded with all sorts of interesting characters, broadly speaking, it’s telling that Maurer inspires so much loyalty not only among his clientele, but its staff.
Although as to be expected in any new restaurant venture, the first six months were “a revolving door,” of personnel, he says. The addition of Bartholomew as manager and Eddie Berryman, a 25-year veteran of the Brookside Country Club, as sous chef “really changed everything,” Maurer says. Restaurant staffing is all about getting the right people, and here the staff itself is literally an extended family: his wife, Annette, is the hostess; his brother Jeff is bartender; and Jane Sperling has worked with him for many years behind the bar, first at Henry’s and now here.
Bartholomew’s story offers further illumination. She had started as a server when the restaurant opened and then moved to Oregon with her boyfriend. They were both homesick, so the 25-year-old came back to Randall’s as a server. A few weeks in, things changed: Maurer needed a manager. He tested the waters, offering her the position in June 2012. Bartholomew, who says her boss “leads by example,” has grown tremendously in just a year. “I’ve been in the food industry since I was able to work, but never has anyone taught me as much about life and business as he has. For that, I’m forever thankful,” she says.
It’s funny, though. For a chef as experienced as Maurer, who refers to himself as “a journeyman,” one of his assumptions about the place itself has been off. “I first thought the bar was too big, but I was dead ringing wrong about that. I wanted something a little more upscale than what we had at Henry’s, which we have, but we’re two-deep at the bar on weeknights,” he says. Part of Randall’s success can be attributed to the addition of early dinner specials, which are available Tuesday through Thursday nights, with a three-course, prix fixe meal that costs $25 per person. “What we used to do on the weekend, in terms of business, we now do during the week,” he explains.
Whodathunkit? It’s not every day that your workplace inspires such largesse.
The development has surprised nearly everyone. The local neighborhood has embraced him—as much as you can call the surrounding sprawling countryside a neighborhood. The regulars have embraced the employees, too. Recently, Bartholomew took a vacation to New Orleans—something she initially felt guilty about. “It’s hard to ask for time off from someone who doesn’t take a vacation [for himself],” she says. A trip to New Orleans isn’t complete without hitting all the food hot spots. A couple of regulars at Randall’s—frequent travelers to the Crescent City themselves—got wind of her trip and gave her a $125 gift card to La Boca Steakhouse.
Whodathunkit? It’s not every day that your workplace inspires such largesse. As third places—you know, the destination that isn’t your work or your home—restaurants fill an important need for community building. But mostly, Randall’s is one of those hidden gems that catches you by surprise on a twisty bucolic road just off Route 309. You should put it on your radar—or at least your GPS.
