Chad Boswell will tell you, without a trace of false modesty, that for 26 years he and his brother Travis have been “plugging along doing what they’ve been doing.”
The phrase undersells things considerably. What they have been doing, in a century-old house in Cashiers, is running one of the most dependable restaurants in the region – the kind of place where the trout has been on the menu since opening night and the chef has been in the kitchen for twenty-one years, and neither of those facts strikes anyone as unusual.
The brothers purchased the old residence in 2000 and converted it themselves. Their father had run the White Goose Café and the Oakmont Lodge in town; their grandparents had operated a restaurant in Florida. Hospitality was simply the family occupation. Chad took the dining room, Travis took the kitchen, and that arrangement has held ever since.
That steadiness extends to the menu. At the stove is Chef Iwayan Sudiartama, now more than two decades into his tenure. His cooking draws from a Southern pantry with a light global hand, but the guiding principle is restraint: introduce something new, but don’t take away what people come for.
And people come for the same dishes, year after year.
Trout – sautéed, fried, almondine, or stuffed with crab – remains the perennial favorite.
The Orchard Chicken, filled with apple, sage, walnuts, and cheese, has become a default order for many regulars.
The Crab Cakes, based on the Boswells’ family recipe, lean heavily on lump crab with minimal filler. These are not dishes chasing attention; they’re dishes that have earned their place.
Seasonal changes to the menu are made carefully – guests have strong feelings about their favorites, and the kitchen respects that.
“We always try something new,” Travis says, “but never take away the most popular items.”
This spring, the new addition generating the most excitement is a Quail Breast on a Biscuit Slider. A handful of nightly specials round out the menu, giving the kitchen room to work with what’s fresh and giving regulars a reason to see what’s new. The wine list is also being quietly refreshed, tasted and updated bottle by bottle.
The property has grown around the restaurant without upstaging it. A guest cottage was added about 15 years ago, and in 2015 the brothers built an events barn – indoor/outdoor, with big barn doors that open to a covered porch – that has become a destination in its own right. The calendar fills steadily with rehearsal dinners, wedding parties, birthday celebrations, and family reunions. The barn also hosts Blue Ridge School’s annual Academic Awards Banquet, a detail that says something about how rooted the Boswells are here; both brothers graduated from the school.
The restaurant accepts reservations, opening at 5:15 Tuesday through Saturday – with additional Sunday dinner services during the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. The crowd, increasingly, includes a second generation – guests who first came with their parents and now return on their own, often ordering the same dishes. After 26 years, The Orchard has become the kind of place people rely on – not just for what’s on the plate, but for the assurance that it will be much the same the next time they walk through the door. The distinction is that here, consistency isn’t inertia – it’s discipline. You can learn more at theorchardcashiers.com, but nothing beats a meal there!
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