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Riverside Roadhouse Chef wins over customers with farm-to-table dishes

By Karen Vibert-Kennedy 4 min read

"Pay your farmer or pay your doctor," the old saying goes, said Winston Blick, the new chef of Riverside Roadhouse in Montgomery.

Blick has taken that phrase to heart in his 29-year career as a chef with his farm-to-table philosophy for his food.

After closing his two popular high-end restaurants in Baltimore, Blick was looking for a change and with his mother living in Muncy and other family nearby, the head chef position at the Riverside Roadhouse, 125 S. Main St., Montgomery, brought the change that he was seeking.

"I just wanted to create real, honest food," said Blick, who began cooking here last October.

"All I knew was to apply my food philosophy, like how I think about food," Blick said.

The challenge was how to apply that to an established restaurant.

"You can't just change everything. There are locals here, so how do we make the best hamburger we can make, if we make mac and cheese, make it the best mac and cheese, you know, it's like you make it really simple. Just making sure we were doing everything with excellence and the people. The cooks here were already awesome," Blick said.

One of those simple improvements is the addition of a wood-fired pit at Riverside Roadhouse.

"I was thinking, what can I introduce that will be reasonably priced and accessible?" Blick said.

Blick introduced a Maryland favorite, pit beef sandwich. It is just charred a bit on the outside, piled high super thin slices with a bit of smoke with onions and some horseradish.

"If you try it, I'll win you over," Blick added.

The Riverside Roadhouse owners, Tina and Devin O'Rourke, have supported Blick every step of the way.

"The owners here are fantastic. 'What do you need?'" they asked Blick. "We need to build a pit, and he was like, 'OK, awesome.'"

Tina and Devin bought Riverside Roadhouse in June 2018.

Having Blick as their chef was a "total game changer," Tina said. "With his knowledge and experience, it just opens up a whole new world."

"In the bigger cities people would pay to work under him," Tina said.

The restaurant is looking for cooks to work under Blick, which she acknowledged would be a great learning experience for a cook.

"We are going to pay you to come in and learn from one of the best, it's kind of crazy," Tina said.

That farm-to-table concept has been embraced by the O'Rourkes, who welcomed the opportunity to feature the food from their friends and neighbors' farms, including Ulrich Farm and Berger's Greenhouse, both near Allenwood.

"We use local beef at home... Once we got into the restaurant business, we were like, 'You know what we need: to bring that beef in here, because we know we have the best product -- because it's local, because it's fresh. It's raised 10 miles from here, and they butcher and bring it right here and we are using it immediately," shared Tina.

The restaurant has also started using hydroponic lettuce from Berger's Greenhouse and eggs from Fishers Poultry Farm in Elimsport.

It is nice to be able to support local friends and community members that the couple has grown up with and gone to school with in their restaurant, Tina said.

Blick's long career that brought him to Montgomery included a few appearances on shows on the Food Network, including "Guy's Grocery Games" and "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," hosted by Guy Fieri.

Usually, the show features three eateries, but "We were two thirds of the show," said Blick, who featured a pork tenderloin dish.

Whether it's on the Food Network or feeding the crowds at the Riverside Roadhouse, Blick is at home in the kitchen.

"It's real food, it's honest food. If you make it with sincerity and you know, good intention, it's honest, and that's all we can do, and you know that will do well," Blick said.

"It's very intimate to feed people. No matter what you're feeding. You have made it with your hands, they are eating it with their hands," Blick said.

"It's a rare gift that I get to make people really happy," Blick said.

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