Gretchen started Bon Temps Gourmet in 1989 as a catering business in the wilds of Worcester, and quickly put a street cart on State Street in Montpelier as a way to get the word out about her new business. Greg joined the business in ’92 as the grill guy, then went to NECI and worked at A Single Pebble while Gretchen worked for Senator Leahy, and together Gretchen and Greg continued to feed Central Vermont through various venues over the years (street cart, catering, Airstream mobile kitchen, weddings, private dinners, multi-day camps etc.). In 2015 they built a river stone pizza oven on their property in Worcester, and West Worcester Woodfired was born. They have been making smoked nuts for catering events for many years, always thinking that it would make a good product to package for the retail market, but too busy with catering to actually get around to packaging and marketing the smoked nuts. Until the pandemic hit that is, and their catering business was effectively shut down – so they pivoted to West Worcester Woodfired Smoked Nuts! We source out the highest quality whole raw nuts, cold-smoke them for 12 hours, then roast them and toss in the seasonings – smoked chile oil that we make in-house from chiles de arbol, garlic and olive oil; Vermont honey from our friends at Bee Haven Honey Farm down the road in Putnamville; and kosher salt and Spanish paprika. We create W3 Smoked Nuts in our home-based commercial kitchen in Worcester, Vermont, operating as a “mom and pop” business without any employees (except for friends and neighbors who help out with pizza nights).
