Full ‘Moon:’ Harvest Moon’s booming brand builds from restaurant, catering and food line to add upscale bar, events venue
By Natalie Simms
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With a booming restaurant and catering business, growing line of food products and now a popular bar and event venue, Ginny Kibler and her staff at Harvest Moon Café are making a mark in Northwest Georgia.
Harvest Moon has come a long way from its beginnings as a small bread market in Cave Spring nearly 17 years ago. In January 1999, Kibler opened a second sandwich shop on East Second Avenue but the restaurant soon outgrew the location. Kibler and her husband, Doc, decided to renovate the old Fahy Department Store on Broad Street and Harvest Moon Café opened at its current location in 2001.
Now serving lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch, Harvest Moon offers on and off-site catering, private parties on their Mezzaluna level and trivia and live music at the Moon Roof Bar.
“I started as a waiter at the café and worked for our then-puny catering department,” says Justin Deal, assistant manager at Harvest Moon Café. “I went from being a server to bartender to assistant catering manager and really expanded that into a full-time department. And now, our catering department is almost comparable in sales to the restaurant.
“We cater anything … dinners, lunches, parties … we’ve done events for nearly 1,000 attendees.”
Harvest Moon’s on-site options have grown in the last five months to include the new Moon River venue, located in the back of the new Dark Side of the Moon bar that opened in October next door to the café.
“We really wanted a real nice bar downtown . . . everyone’s tried but there really hasn’t been one since T.Martooni’s a few years ago,” says Deal. “With Ginny’s name and Harvest Moon attached to it, we thought the Dark Side of the Moon would be a hit. The community has been very receptive and helped us grow since we opened Halloween 2014.”
The bar offers jazz nights on Tuesday and features live bands on the weekend. It is open Monday-Sunday from 4 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
“We are working to plan some special events. We have a few planned including the European Passport Dinner where participants will get to taste food and drinks from seven different countries,” he says. “And we’re having a mini-expo of Georgia Craft Beers from craft breweries all over the state next month.”
The Moon River venue is now booking events including parties, wedding receptions and special dinners.
“We have been taking our time and transforming this wonderful space into a venue above and beyond anything we had ever hoped for. This industrial chic space with the building’s original elements of pressed tin ceiling and brick walls, dressed up with rustic wood and lighting will provide an attractive blank palate for any type of event,” states the Moon River website. It was used for a quieter, romantic setting on Valentine’s Day earlier this month.
And there’s more happening outside of the restaurant. Kibler has developed a line of Wicked Moon Foods that is sold a few local retailers and distributed to other food service establishments through Sysco Atlanta.
“We have been aggressively selling our products up and down the East Coast,” says Deal. “So, I know we are trying to continue growing our Wicked products with our distributor Sysco.”
The food line currently includes Harvest Moon’s ever popular Wicked Pimina Cheese and their Wicked Bacon Gorgonzola Dip.
“We are very thankful to the community for their support,” says Deal. “We will continue growing Harvest Moon with our nearly 80 employees to make a good product.”
