As a very young child, Cole Lindsey was working in a commercial kitchen, helping his father at the Highland Lake Restaurant in Flat Rock. Although one might assume that a child would find this work boring and more punishment than opportunity, that was not the case for Cole. He loved being in his father’s kitchen and now, more than three decades later, Cole Lindsey is still happily ensconced in the kitchen.

Today, however, it is his own kitchen where he pursues his passion.

Cole and his wife Tatyana own Barnhouse Kitchen based out of Flat Rock. A mainstay at several local farmers markets, Barnhouse has carved out an impressive niche in the local prepared food market. “We take high-end restaurant caliber cuisine,” explains Cole, “and we package it in a way that you can finish in your oven at home.” Their menu of products includes savory pies, quiches, savory strudels, and a creation unique to Barnhouse called strübuns.

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Cole’s childhood was spent sharing time between two very different worlds. His parents divorced when he was young and he moved back and forth between his mother Sandy’s home in Asheville during the week and weekends in Flat Rock helping out his father Larc at the restaurant. Looking back he realizes how much he learned from both parents in that arrangement.

Larc Lindsey lived a free-wheeling and often chaotic life-style centered in the food service industry - running restaurants, operating catering services, and spending weekends exploring the food preferences of patrons at local farmers markets. It was, as Cole describes it now, something of a wild ride. “Hanging out with my dad was like going to see your best friend for summer camp.”  His mother, by contrast, was the stable foundational force in his early life.“Thank God for my mom,” says Cole. “With her influence I’m able to have the level head to run a business.”

As fate would have it, Cole Lindsey has discovered a way to combine the culinary genius of his father with a more pragmatic and structured approach to life and business as influenced by his mom.  The result, is a business built on family heirloom recipes and a personal style capable of navigating the frequently challenging and always changing waters of the food service industry.

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In 1985, Cole’s uncle, Kerry Lindsey, purchased the 250 acres of Our Lady of Hills Camp situated on Highland Lake in Flat Rock and converted the facility into a resort. Initially, there was not a restaurant at the resort, so Larc Lindsey went to AB Tech to get a culinary degree and opened the Highland Lake Restaurant in the old camp dining hall. “Being around my father meant being in the restaurant,” Cole remembers.  “He didn’t have a lot of free time. But I loved that.”

Highland Lake Restaurant utilized local produce and items from the Lindsey family garden which was maintained by Cole’s grandmother, Treska. In many ways, Larc and this restaurant were groundbreakers. “It was an early farm-to-table concept restaurant - one of the first in the Southeast,” says Cole. Larc put his sons to work in the restaurant during their weekend visits and had Cole and his brother Kip peeling potatoes or capping strawberries for Sunday brunch. Cole loved it.

With time, Cole was given more responsibility at the restaurant. By age 11 he was manning the waffle station and wearing a tall chef’s hat. “Very exciting!” As a teenager, he was in the kitchen plating food and adding garnishes before sending the dishes out to the diners. 

For Cole, food service was both a passion and a means of connecting with a father that struggled with various addictions throughout his life.  “My dad’s lifestyle was like a roller coaster ride from a child’s perspective and at times I didn’t want to be on that roller coaster. But if he was doing well and life wasn’t too crazy for him, I would jump on board.”

Following high school, Cole left for college at UNCC. The independence and freedom of being on his own, however, led to some poor decisions that led Cole to run afoul of the law and short-circuited his first attempt at college. “I had lived a lifestyle of not being overly monitored or disciplined. I was always halfway doing good things and halfway in trouble.”  

Although a dark time in his life, Cole now sees that experience at age 21 as an important inflection point in his life. “That time led to a rebirth for me. I was able to shed a dark chapter of my life that I didn’t want anything to do with, but didn’t know how to get rid of.”  Cole pauses for a moment and adds, “That’s when my life really began, honestly.”

It took nearly a decade of working and taking classes, but Cole finally finished college at age 27. He studied gerontology and health communication and worked at an assisted living facility for several years while finishing school. He also worked as a server for area restaurants. “My 20s were an experience of trying to navigate life and get an education and figure out how to get out on my own.”

He was ultimately hired as a business administrator for the assisted living facility where he worked - which ironically was when he fell out of love with the job. “I was not in contact with the residents and felt trapped at the desk all the time.”  He was also very disillusioned with the food served to the residents.  “The primary place they tried to save money was in their food. The type of food they served was depressing and made me ashamed.”  

Hoping to fix the problem, Cole borrowed his grandmother’s tiller and helped plant gardens on the property to improve the quality of food. The project was successful and helped improve the food quality, but not enough to quell Cole’s concerns. After four years, he needed to get out and he returned to what he had always known - working in food service full-time.

As is so often the case, one door closed and another, very transformative, door opened for Cole.

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Cole began to work full-time at a Charlotte fondue restaurant called The Melting Pot. His years of experience made him especially proficient at his job and when a new employee arrived one day, Cole was tasked with helping to train her. Her name was Tatyana. Still, something of a free spirit when it came to standard operating procedures, Cole’s fellow employees had an admonition for the new trainee.  “My colleagues told her, ‘Just do the opposite of everything he shows you and you will be fine.’” laughs Cole.

In a story lifted straight out of a rom-com movie script, Cole began devising ways to spend more time with his attractive and personable trainee. When Cole’s car broke down he reached out to Tatyana who lived nearby and caught a ride to work with her. Alone in the car and away from the hectic pace of the restaurant, Cole realized that commuting together was a great way to build on their relationship. He decided to put off the necessary car repairs for several weeks to maintain the excuse to be with her and to allow their relationship to bloom. A broken down Volvo had become an unlikely Cupid in their evolving love story.

During those commutes, Cole learned more of Tatyana’s story. Born in Ukraine, she and her family had immigrated to the United States when she was just 8 years old to escape corruption rampant in Ukraine in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tatyana, her parents, and her three siblings ended up in Spokane, WA initially. No one in the family spoke English and it was a difficult transition.  Within a year, however, the family moved to Rochester, NY and Tatyana started to make friends and knew enough English to translate for others less proficient. The family later moved to Charlotte where she attended high school and eventually ended up as a server at The Melting Pot

With time, Cole invited Tatyana to visit his family in Henderson County. Two important revelations emerged from that trip. For Cole, he realized that he wanted to move home. For Tatyana, visiting Flat Rock and meeting Cole’s wider family helped cement his place in her heart. Tatyana was taken by the rural feel of Flat Rock which reminded her of the village where she had grown up in Ukraine. The courtship accelerated from there and the couple was married in 2014 - less than two years after their first meeting.

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The newly married couple moved to Henderson County and Cole returned to helping with his father’s varied business interests.  They pursued a number of options including serving as the food service provider for High Lake Academy, catering, and selling hot food at the farmers market on King Street in Hendersonville.

At one point, Larc began hiking extensively and started collecting chanterelle mushrooms during his outings. He sold them at the farmers market and eventually cooked them with leeks to prepare quiches to sell at market. They were a huge success and Cole encouraged him to make similar type of products. The next offering was a tomato pie. Then more quiches followed with fresh seasonal vegetables. Additional ideas followed - quiches, savory pies, and strudels. Cole and his father knew they had hit on something that could be big. 

Cole encouraged his father to continue again the next spring. They added a  spinach and chicken pie and a shrimp and sherry pie to the lineup of offerings and they also figured out how to freeze them so that customers could take them home and eat them at their convenience. “I felt like we were tapping into something beyond the average convenience experience.”

In the third year of the venture, the father son duo started going out to a market in Brevard. “On the the very first day we sold out. I remember my father’s eyes were so big. We had a blast,” Cole recalls.  After that year Larc encouraged him to run with the concept while trying to find a way to maintain quality but produce their products on a large enough scale to make the business financially feasible. Through it all, Cole was relishing the chance to be with his father again. “Those were the best years of my life with my dad.”

Cole also realized that this new and evolving line of products was a way to be in the food service industry without the oppressive stress that his father experienced during his career. “I didn’t believe I wanted to cook for a living. I was convinced it was a terrible way to go.”  Cole had, however, discovered a new way to employ and build on the many wonderful recipes his father had developed over the years. “It was a way to do what I love without killing myself. I work really hard but I can manage my lifestyle.”

Unfortunately, Larc’s many years of struggling with addictions finally caught up with him and he passed away in 2018. Cole no longer had his partner in the kitchen, but he did have his father’s passion for preparing good food, his father’s recipes, and a determination to be there for his wife and two little girls.

Cole and Tatyana also cared for his grandmother Treska during the last five years of her life before she passed away in 2019. That time allowed him to utilize his formal training as a caretaker and develop a deeper relationship with the grandmother he loved. “She was a wellspring of knowledge, and wisdom, and talent that she passed down to all of us.” Then he adds, “It was a hard but beautiful time.”

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Today Barnhouse Kitchen can be found at farmers markets all over the area - ASAP Farmers Market, Flat Rock Farmers Market, North Asheville Tailgate Market, Transylvania County Farmers Market, Traveler’s Rest Farmers Market, and by order direct from the kitchen on Lily Pad Lane.

“We focus on what’s going into these products as opposed to being a pastry or baked goods company. I found that folks around here want it to be as simple as possible and as tasty as it can be. It’s real food.”

2022 will be an important year for Barnhouse Kitchen. A long-standing catering contract has ended and Cole and Tatyana are excited to have more time to devote to the business. They are also excited to have a little more free time for family - although it is still very hard work. Cole can still find himself working in the Barnhouse Kitchen at midnight and he is typically packing product to take to the various farmers markets from 4 to 7 a.m, each Saturday morning.

Despite their hectic schedules, Cole and Tatyana still find time to squeeze in preparing a free meal for Hope United Methodist Church’s “Welcome Table” once a month. Barnhouse Kitchen provides the food and feeds approximately 60-90 people.

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Larc Lindsey’s legacy lives on in his recipes and the spirit of his son. Indeed, Cole still learns from his father.

“The best piece of advice he ever gave me was to decide what kind of man I wanted to be when I was 65. Set that on the horizon and work towards that. I think he really regretted that he didn’t do that.” Cole has taken that advice to heart. “The most important thing is that my family knows that I am going to be steady. That I’m always going to be there.”

Cole Lindsey truly has been on a long and winding road to find his way in the world. But along the way, he found his passion, he found a beautiful family, and he found a way to make the world a little more convenient and a lot more delicious.

Learn more about Barnhouse Kitchen and order online at barnhousekitchen.com