Former Backwoods space at Bradley Fair has surprise transformation for new restaurant

Jon Rolph thinks most people familiar with the former Backwoods space at Bradley Fair will be surprised to see how Thrive Restaurant Group’s second HomeGrown restaurant looks in the space, which used to have windows that were covered to create more display areas.

“There’s just a ton of windows,” Rolph says. “It really just opens up the space (and) brings in a lot of natural light.”

The new breakfast-and-lunch restaurant opens at 6:30 a.m. Monday and will be open daily from 6:30 a.m to 2:30 p.m.

Those familiar with the first HomeGrown that opened at NewMarket North in May 2017 will notice the shape of the new restaurant is different since the front door opens to the middle of the restaurant.

“Which creates a unique and interesting feel,” Rolph says.

His Good Egg restaurant on the other side of Bradley Fair has closed. Rolph’s original plan was to put HomeGrown there, but the Good Egg space wasn’t quite right for the new concept. The Good Egg employees have moved to HomeGrown.

The HomeGrown logo has a bee buzzing in it, and Rolph says the idea with the chain and its bee is to “cultivate kindness.”

He says his “wife’s excellent decorating” incorporates a lot of hexagons like the ones that bees make.

Rolph also commissioned young local artists, sisters Ellie and Maggie Newlin, to create some hexagonal art that he’ll leave up for a year and then auction for charity.

The west-side HomeGrown often has long lines, so Rolph encourages people going to the new restaurant to use the Nowait app “that gets you in line so you can know when to show up if you want a table.”

A third HomeGrown will open in early January downtown in the Spaghetti Works District with a patio that opens onto Naftzger Park.

Thrive also owns Carlos O’Kelly’s and is an Applebee’s franchisee. The company has more than 60 restaurants total.

The busy Rolph is working on another new restaurant concept as well. Look for possible news on that later this year.

This story was originally published March 24, 2019 at 5:56 PM.