Peter Hoffman, Father Of Farm To Table Movement, Is Leaving The Restaurant Business

After more than a quarter-century in the business, Peter Hoffman — often hailed as a forefather of the farm to table movement — is leaving the traditional restaurant business. He is closing his last restaurant, Back Forty West, a casual American place in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, on July 16 after serving the public on that site for 26 years.This closure comes a year and a half after the shuttering of the original Back Forty location on Avenue B, and five years after Hoffman closed Savoy, a SoHo mainstay at the forefront of the sustainable and mindful food revolution, which occupied the present premises of Back Forty West.

"My interests have evolved over the past decades and so I am shifting my efforts beyond day-to-day operations of a food service business to work on broader food and agriculture issues," Hoffman says in a letter to supporters and customers. "Since its inception Susan [my wife] and I strove to build a passionate community of neighbors, patrons, employees and suppliers.  We succeeded. That community has sustained us in myriad ways and we are deeply grateful."

Hoffman suggests that you will still be able to see (and sample) his work at curated events and popup dinners, as he shifts almost full-time to activist work and working on a food memoir.