Hemlock's Maple Grille cooks farm fresh with fire

• The Maple Grille in Hemlock, Michigan, offers a rotating farm-to-table menu of pub food and pizza. Everything is cooked on a wood-fired grill.
• The business is on six acres of land, including the restaurant, a brewery housed in a repurposed shipping container, a chicken coop, a hoop house, and a small produce farm.

Two things stand out in the gravel parking lot of the Maple Grille in Hemlock, Michigan: the smoke wafting out of a long pavilion, and an enormous pile of firewood.

“The Maple Grille started out here,” Josh Schaeding, chef-owner of the restaurant, said.

Before the six-acre property just off M-46 became a restaurant, it was home to a construction company owned by Schaeding’s father and grandfather. The family built two long maple syrup evaporators in front of the business, near the roadside.

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“So many people stopped by and thought we were cooking ribs,” Schaeding said. “We were just cooking maple syrup. I decided as soon as syrup season was over to… start a restaurant here.”

The restaurant, which is surrounded by farmland, draws in a mix of locals, loyal seasonal customers, and vacationers passing through on their way up north. Nearly everything on the menu is locally sourced, from the meat to the produce to the firewood that fuels all three of their grills.

A family-friendly environment

Sitting down with Josh Schaeding at the Maple Grille feels like visiting someone in their home.

There are family members working in the kitchen, and daily regulars in the dining room. Pictures on the walls feature neighborhood kids at 4-H shows, and a huge gold trophy from a chili cookoff is on display across from the cash register.

“My parents both graduated from Hemlock Schools,” Schaeding said. “I actually grew up in Shields, so I went to Swan Valley. But they've had this building here since the late 80s, when it was built.”

Schaeding’s mother and wife help out in the kitchen, and his father works with a team of gardeners on the small farm outside. His kids get dropped off by a school bus right in front of the building.

Various friends have also offered to lend a hand over the years, including Frank Siazik, a customer-turned-friend.

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Siazik used to work in Saginaw, he said, and would regularly stop at the restaurant on the way home to chat and enjoy a beer. He’s helped Schaeding with whatever odd jobs need to be done, from pouring cement for the hoop house to bringing in produce from his home garden.

“[Josh has] got projects and… I just help him out when he needs a hand and, you know, make things easier for him, because he works his butt off,” Siazek said.

Brewery food at an exceptional level

Schaeding has always been drawn to cooking, he said. He attended culinary school through Northern Michigan University and worked at several restaurants before starting his own.

“I've been privileged to work underneath two different French chefs… so I learned a lot of French-style food,” he said. “I just kind of do my own thing here, you know? This is how I was raised — on beef that my family grew. And [I was] raised out in my garden, and we just kind of carried it on to the restaurant.”

Whether he’s buying whole cows, pigs, ducks, chickens, or fish, Schaeding said he tries to cook with every part of the animal. The homemade pastrami in their reuben sandwich, for example, uses brisket soaked in corn brine, smoked, and sliced thin.

“One day we're serving New Yorks, and the next day we are serving sirloins,” he said. “[The menu] just changes every day.”

Everything is cooked over a wood-fired grill. Schaeding was drawn to the challenge of the method.

“It just had to stick out and be unique, doing stuff the hard way, because there's a lot more work involved,” he said. “Everything from putting wood in the fire, to cleaning up, to moving the wood, and fluctuating temperatures. Nothing's ever the same.”

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When it comes to produce, the restaurant only serves what’s in season. That means no tomatoes on burgers or in salads during the winter. Some ingredients are sourced from other regions of Michigan, including potatoes sourced from the Thumb and parsnips from the west side of the state. But once the weather warms up, Schaeding said, most of their produce will come from growers within 10 miles of the restaurant.

Without the support of the local community, Schaeding said, the Maple Grille “wouldn’t ever survive.” The quality of their fare relies on local farmers and growers.

“I like eating good food,” Schaeding said. “And to get the best food, it's got to be fresh and local.”