We are very excited to introduce the Inn Kitchen + Bar. The Squam Lake Inn cafe has been very popular dining spot for the past seven years–but we felt it was time to shake it up!  I am sure that this is not a surprise to our customers who have been with us from the start!  We have made a few changes around here in the nine years that we have called the Squam Lake Inn home.  Here is a peek of what we have going on in the dining room this month:

• New Name Branding
• New Menu Concept and Format (All your favorites are still available!)
• Cool Community Table (We brought some CA back to NH with us!)
• New Hours–Ask your server for a postcard that details the restaurant hours!
• Updated Decor + Lighting
• Central Air Conditioning in the Dining Room (This was for you Beth!)
• Comfortable Bench Seating

We are looking forward to the season and are very excited to implement and execute our vision. The Inn Kitchen + Bar will open for the 2012 season on, Wednesday, May 9. We will be open for Lunch & Dinner.  Sunday, May 13 is Mother’s Day–make reservations today for Mom’s Special Day!  Looking forward to seeing you soon….Rae

Weekend Hours, May 7 & 8:

Red Barn Sat & Sun 11-5

SLI Cafe Sunday Brunch 9-3

New Kitchen Space!

It has been a crazy couple of weeks at the SLI. The exterior of the kitchen addition has been completed. Drywall is being installed, as I type! Our new guest room, the Eagles Nest is looking great! Cindy has selected a great color palette for the decor. One of our favorite past guests just booked the room for 5 nights in August. I think they are going to love it! We should have some photos of a few finished projects in the next week. Guests arrive for for lodging on April 10th! We are in crunch time…wish us luck!

Beams Ready for installation

A  busy week at the Squam Lake Inn comes to a close! Rick and Dave of Granite Shores Builders have been on site this week constructing a screened porch on the deck. We are very excited about the new porch area and think this is a welcomed enhancement to the inn. The actual number of seats have not changed, we will just have a more functional and versatile place to enjoy dining!  The framing, roofing and electrical are completed.  Finish work begins tomorrow.  We have been actively involved in the construction project…painting!  Stay in touch to see our progress.

View from the new bar!

The Roof is on!

VT Ingredients

My affections for donuts began at an early age.  I have many memories of  watching bakery ladies through a large window decorate cakes at Rossmoor Pastries, then entering the bakery for the prized raspberry jelly sugar donut.  I have not eaten a jelly donut to date that can compare with my memory of the that donut!

I have been wanting to incorporate donuts into our guests experience since we bought the inn 8 years ago. Donuts made to date…ZERO.   Each fall comes as goes without a single apple cider donut made in our kitchen. Well, that is about to change. We made the quick trip to King Arthur Flour in Norwich, VT for a class in donut making.The class was a bunch of fun and took the mystery out of donut making. We made three types of donuts: churros, baked cinnamon sugar donuts and a German Berliner. The Berliner was a raspberry filled gem that rivaled my childhood memory of the “best” donut ever.

This season we will be serving Sunday Brunch to our inn guests as well as our local customers. I know that some of you are smiling right now.  In addition to our scratch made pastries, we thought donuts would be a fun addition to a Sunday.  Definitely be on the look out for the Berliner as well as few other delights.  Don’t be surprised if I work our bacon into a scrumptious donut.  Our bacon is already EPIC and donuts are pretty high on the list of irresistible sweets.  So to merry these ingredients up seems, um, natural, right?

Make plans to join us on Sundays this summer.  We will be open for Mother’s Day Brunch, May 9th from 9-2 .  Our official opening day for the cafe is Friday, May 28th.

To learn more about the classes at King Arthur:

www.kingarthurflour.com

There was a writer in our class you can view her article here:

http://7dvt.com/2010doughnuts-king-arthur

I mention these films because they serve as inspiration and reminders that eating local can be a reality–with some effort.  At the Squam Lake Inn, we are committed to serving local food in our cafe. Each year we have included more local ingredients to our menu. This year is no different.  We are very passionate are using local sources, but first you have to find them!  It can be a bit frustrating and very time consuming trying to source our food locally. We are small enough that we can’t consume what a local farm would commit to plant for us yet to too large to purchase consistently from local farm stands.  We are actively forming partnerships with local farms and we can tell you that it is a rewarding feeling to support them!

Please stay posted as we are planning some exciting enhancements  to our menus.

Bennett Cove-Comfortable Main Level Room

We have not updated our blog since July, we vow to get better at communicating more frequently! I will try to bring this blog up to date…The most common question we hear throughout our season is, “so what do you do in the off season?” We are now in the thick of the off season and crunch time will be here before we know it! The biggest project we have been working on is a new website. We are not actually doing the design work, we have enlisted White Stone Marketing to do the design. We have worked with White Stone for about 6 years and they finally convinced us that a new site was imperative! About 18% of web content is actually read, so Jumping Rocks Photography was here in November to shoot the interior of the inn.  I must mention that 1 room was repainted and 4 rooms were redecorated in the 72 hours prior to their arrival!  Mark and Matthew from Jumping rocks were awesome to have here and the shots they took of the place made the the Squam Lake Inn shine! They will be back in June to photograph the barn, the deck, more food and the exterior of the inn. We are looking forward to their return. Here is a link a link to their notes from visiting the Squam Lake Inn: http://jumpingrocks.blogspot.com/2009/11/unique-photo-driven-themes-for-websites.html