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Patina Green: Storied new shop in Historic Downtown
By Andrew Snyder, asnyder@acnpapers.com
Patina Green Home and Market, one of Historic Downtown McKinney's newest stores, is a unique mash up of the most popular business types around. A one-stop shop for Square visitors, a portion of the store consists of an open kitchen where food is prepared and served to customers who need only take a step further to browse through a selection of antiques.
Named after the look of aged, oxidized metal seen in the greenish hue of the Statue of Liberty, the store was inspired by European businesses and has a philosophy of buying fresh and local and knowing the history behind its products. Robert Lyford—who owns the store with his mother-in-law Luann Van Winckel, and wife Kaci—said that’s the common ground for the two elements of Patina Green: Everything there has a story.
Kaci, an interior designer, and Van Winckel, who has spent here life working in retail, handle the antique side of business. The focus of their selection is on refinished, refurbished or hand-made items. Soaps sold at the store are made in the kitchen of a family friend. Some of the old decorative bottles on the shelf where salvaged from the bottom of the sea. Half an old backers rack sits in the corner, repurposed to hold wine.
Robert handles the cooking. Classical trained at the California Culinary Academy, he worked as a chef in Dallas restaurants before getting out of the business after its demanding schedule of long hours on holidays, nights and weekends kept him from seeing his wife. They started operating a decorative painting company together called Patina Finishes, but years later he wanted to get back into food.
“I say I've been training on my own for the last seven years,” Lyford said. “Going to markets, playing around. When you're a chef you don't ever cook for yourself. You cook for others all the time, but I've been cooking for me for the past seven years. I figured out my own style, figured out what I like.”
The chef has a simple rule: Get good ingredients and try not to mess them up
“If you start with the best stuff, you're going to have a great product,” Lyford said.
Everyday local farmers bring in their produce and place it alongside a collection of Texas cheeses and meat to make up the ingredients available. From there Lyford constructs his menu, which could consist of a couple of sandwiches, a salad, tacos, quesadillas or pastries, among other items. A new selection is concocted every few days.
Lyford said he tries to avoid buying from big companies. He admits supporting the small guy limits what he can get but adds that more local business leads to familiarity, comfort and knowledge of the producer.
“I've been to the farms,” Lyford said. “I've seen the land. I've been in the grass the cows are eating, watched them milk the cows. It's real food.”
On Thursday, he had three sandwiches on the menu: A jalapeño cheddar made with smoked sausage and white cheddar cheese on jalapeño cheese bread; a Fischer's ham—named after the meat market in Muenster, Texas he buys from—served with smoked cheddar cheese and mayonnaise made in house; and barbecue chicken with smoked pepper jack and some roasted onions bought locally.
Lyford also made a salad he named “The Kitchen Sink” after throwing in everything he had left.
“It keeps it exciting,” he said. “Obviously, there are a lot of businesses down here, and I think everyone gets tired of eating the same things all the time. We're to the point now where we're starting to develop relationships with people, and they're coming in asking what we have today. They don't even care, they just know it's going to be something good and it's going to be something real.”
Because of the nature of the antique trade, the owners of Patina Green can't just call up a supplier to refill their stock. Pieces have to be hunted down individually, and the family only recently reopened shop after making a buying trip to England and Belgium. These trips take place every six months or so, Robert said, and are one of the perks of the job.
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