Regardless of what happens with Yorktown’s Carrot Tree restaurant, Grace Episcopal Church Assistant Rector Connie Jones wants to say thanks.
“The first thing I thought of when I heard [Carrot Tree] was closing down is that ‘we here at Grace Church would starve to death,” Jones said. “So many of us eat there on a regular basis. We love the employees and we love the menu.”
Jones said the church is planning to host a lunch for the employees of Carrot Tree after the scheduled closing date, Dec. 19.
“I thought perhaps we could turn the tables and feed the employees of the Carrot Tree,” Jones said. “I hope that dozens and dozens of our parishioners will feed the people who have been feeding us for all this time.”
Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily reported that Carrot Tree is set to close due to an ongoing dispute with the National Park Service regarding the terms of a new contract, though Glenn Helseth, husband of Carrot Tree owner Debi Helseth, said there is a chance the closure might be able to be averted for a year.
Helseth is waiting for a conference call with representatives of both the local National Park Service office and the regional office in Philadelphia. If the terms of a proposed contract extension are to his liking, he may be able to keep the restaurant open. Until then, however, his plan to close remains in effect.
The National Park Service released Tuesday a contract extension offer to a number of concessioners at parks across the country, including the Carrot Tree and the Yorktown Shoppe, another business in historic Yorktown facing an expiring contract.
According to a notice published in the Federal Register Tuesday, “Public notice is hereby given that the National Park Service proposes to extend the following expiring concession contracts for a period of up to 1 (one) year, or until such time as a new contract is executed, whichever occurs sooner.”
Helseth said without a guaranteed 12-month extension, he cannot agree to stay open. October, November and December are the Yorktown Carrot Tree’s busiest months. By accepting a non-guaranteed contract, Helseth could end up in a situation where he stays open for Carrot Tree’s least profitable months—January, February and March—only to be forced out by a new concessioner sometime during the year. Helseth also cited an increase in insurance costs in the extension as prohibitive.
Ethan McKinley, chief of concessions for the northeast region of the National Park Service, said that an annual re-evaluation of insurance costs is written into every concessions contract, including the one Helseth signed 10 years ago.
In order for a new contract to be executed, a new bidder would have to respond to a prospectus put out by the National Park Service.
“Both prospectuses [for the locations currently occupied by Carrot Tree and Yorktown Shoppe] are currently in final review and will be released in the near future,” according to an e-mail from McKinley.
The Yorktown Carrot Tree opened in the historic Cole Digges House in 2003 on a 10-year concessions contract with the National Park Service that expires at the end of the year.
The news of Carrot Tree’s closure prompted members of the community to approach Senator Mark Warner and U.S. Representative Rob Wittman (R-1), who represents the district in which Yorktown resides.
“A number of concerned citizens contacted Rep. Wittman over the last couple of weeks about this matter, and last week, the owner of the Carrot Tree contacted Rep. Wittman asking for assistance in encouraging the National Park Service to extend the current contract,” according to an e-mail from Gordon Neal, a spokesperson for Wittman. “Rep. Wittman subsequently contacted the Park Service on their behalf.”
If the restaurant does close, a group of women from Grace Episcopal Church will have to find a new place to go for lunch on Sundays.
“We have four to nine ladies every Sunday. We call them the church ladies. They come in every Sunday since we opened,” Helseth said. “We even have desserts named after them.”
