Provender Fine Food celebrates 36 years

Heading into its 37th year, Provender Fine Foods is a must-stop on the way to the beach, for a day of lunch and shopping, or just about any time one happens to be in the Tiverton Four Corners area.

While lots of places claim they make everything from scratch, owner Jennifer Borden is serious when she says it. Even the carrot hummus found in the Fin-ish Line tuna sandwich starts out by roasting the carrots, said Borden.

The same goes for the all of the scratch-made sweets filling jars and shelves at the front counters. Baking, said Borden, is her passion: oatmeal date scones, cherry scones, blueberry muffins, lemon bars, cakes, and of course, plenty of cookies – the most sought-after baked treats. Chocolate chip and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are the most popular, she said. The choices also include vegan chocolate orange, oatmeal raisin and the Cowboy cookie, an oatmeal cookie with peanuts, raisins, chocolate chips, cranberries and coconut. On weekends, she makes glazed cinnamon buns that always sell out.

Open for breakfast and lunch, the menu hasn’t changed much over the years. Some of the original sandwiches that were on the menu when they opened remain the most popular: The Scarlet Letter (turkey, cranberry sauce, tarragon mayonnaise and alfalfa sprouts); Dr. Bombay (curried chicken salad with chutney and lettuce); Brideshead Revisited (roast beef, cheddar cheese, horseradish mayonnaise and lettuce) and the Freudian Slip (Black Forest ham, herbed creamed cheese, honeycup mustard and spinach).

Faced with continuing in the vein of the quirky sandwich names from the original owners, Borden said she held a contest with the customers to name the tuna fish sandwich. The winner, The Fin-ish Line, is a tuna sandwich with a creative mixture: tuna salad, carrot hummus, curly carrots and crispy onions. “It sounds odd until you taste it, but it’s sweet and it’s hot and it’s crunchy. It’s hot because the carrot hummus has Sriracha in it. We sell a ton of it. I feel like I’m always roasting carrots,” said Borden.

Lately, she said she’s noticed an uptick in people ordering vegetarian sandwiches and there’s three on the menu to choose from: the Ziggy Stardust (roasted portobello mushrooms, edamame hummus, balsamic roasted onions and orange chipotle mayo), Great Garbanzo (cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, sprouts, onions, mango chutney and their signature spicy orange hummus accented with peanut butter, ginger, spices and garlic) and The Trekkie (edamame spread, goat cheese spread and vegetables).

“We try to make as much as we possibly can from scratch because that’s the way it’s always been. And that’s the way I want it to be. I’m afraid if it ever changes I won’t be able to stand it – I won’t be able to do it any other way,” she said. “I wouldn’t sell anything I wouldn’t eat myself. I take a lot of pride in what we sell and I’m very particular.”

There’s also a daily roster of salads to select from in the case out front. On this day, the choices included a Mediterranean salad with orzo, feta cheese and artichoke hearts.

One of the few items they don’t make from scratch is the bread, which comes from Pain D’Avignon. In addition to selling those breads, they also sell some local products such as The Backyard Food Company’s Sweet Red Relish and Bootblack’s cocktail syrups.

As she looks forward to another year at the much-lauded establishment, Borden said, “It’s been a wonderful journey.”

Borden graduated from Southeastern Massachusetts University (now UMass Dartmouth) in 1975 with a degree in design and photography. Between SMU, RISD and the now-closed Swain School of Design, the area was abundant with graduates from the arts programs, without jobs to match. “A lot of us looked for jobs in other areas and I liked to cook,” she said.

Original owners Cynthia and Scott Burns opened Provender Fine Foods in August 1982. They hired Borden to run the catering portion of the business in January 1983. When Cynthia decided she wanted to return to her previous career, Borden decided to purchase the restaurant in 1990.

“There have been a lot of ups and downs over the years, naturally because it’s a food business. Food is like fashion – things come and go; fads come and go. But it’s been wonderful…. I don’t think I’ve ever regretted a minute of being here,” she said.

One aspect of owning the business that she’s particularly enjoyed is seeing all of the kids who’ve worked at the restaurant while they were in high school and college who now have careers and families of their own. “We’ve had kids become doctors, lawyers. That’s one of the things I’ve really enjoyed is seeing them grow and how they turned out…. It’s really an honor when they come back, because obviously they got something out of working here. A lot of them come in and say they missed a certain sandwich.”

Provender is open Tuesdays through Sundays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in August. In the fall, the hours are Wednesdays through Sundays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The restaurant is closed January, February and March. For a look at the menu, check out the website provenderfinefoods.com.

Email Linda Murphy at lmurphy@heraldnews.com.