Chef Josh Musinski’s goal is to effect greater change using fewer resources. Unfortunately, for fans of Water & Wheat products, meeting that goal means he is permanently closing his restaurant in Hagar Shores and will no longer commercially produce and sell his line of vegan meats.
Musinski is the founder and owner of Water & Wheat and its parent company, Fernberry Farm. The Water & Wheat brand is arguably how most people were introduced to Josh and his food creations which are totally vegan and taste unequivocally decadent.
Whether it was Musinski’s creative takes on cheeseburgers, Beef Wellington, bacon-wrapped filet, Bake-and-Take Fried Chick’un, or Italian sausage sandwiches, many agree his meals were delicious, filling, and astoundingly made entirely without animal products.
Musinski opened the brick-and-mortar Water & Wheat Cafe about six years ago. The idea started as a pilot project inside the Arclight Brewing Company in Watervliet. Musinski had an idea to open a coffee shop/bakery/sandwich counter and eventually move into a nearby undeveloped building space. Though the Arclight pilot was never picked up, Musinski felt strongly there was enough momentum and support that it would be a shame not to continue to let it grow.
That’s when Musinski decided to open Water & Wheat at 6218 M-63 North in Coloma. While it took six months to wade through the bureaucracy, he said once it opened business steadily grew. Musinski saw the typical growing pains with finding the right menu and staff but while working through it, the business began to flourish.
“Somehow, I felt like I was able to pull it off because of my experience and the resources we had. I probably dove in too deep at the beginning, had too big of a menu, too deep of a staff. We were open for a year and a half, and we had 12 employees, which isn’t that many for a restaurant our size. The first thing I did when we opened was get rid of half of the tables and chairs. So, we had a lot of square footage, but it wasn’t that big of a restaurant.”
A year and a half into running the restaurant, COVID hit. Like so many eating establishments, the dine-in portion of Water & Wheat closed.
Even after the front of the house closed, Musinski continued using the kitchen to make and sell his vegan meat products. At the height, he says close to 20 restaurants and stores in the region carried his products. From farmers markets to festivals and different food popup opportunities, Water & Wheat continued its community presence through the mobile food trailer and restaurant and retail distribution network. Musinski even expanded to teach food courses at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and developed a line of spices under the Fernberry Farm brand.
Things came to a head, however, in the fall of 2023 when Musinski made the decision to close the remaining Water & Wheat meat production operations.
“We couldn’t really grow without taking on debt and we didn’t want to take on the kind of debt that was needed to grow.”
Musinski says he’ll still be making food, just in a different and gentler capacity.
“We’re choosing to just move a little lighter, a little leaner with a mobile food unit, the spice line, a cookbook, and cooking classes.”
Alongside those business plans, Musinski is also cultivating another business angle from the ground up – mushrooms.
“They’re profitable for people to grow. They’re gentler on our environment and our ecosystem. Buying them keeps your money local. There are so many reasons to do it, let alone health and taste.”
Musinski feels he can help inspire people’s food futures easier and faster by just going straight to the mushrooms. To make that happen, he’s partnering with Sprout It mushroom producer Dan Delaney whose operations are in Plainwell, Michigan.
“People could have one little taste and see the real potential for cooking a mushroom the proper way. Because I think it’s still a little scary for some people or still a little weird. It’s still kind of new ground to break to enjoy mushrooms beyond a garnish on a meat or a side dish or whatever.”
Musinski says if you give him 45 minutes, he’ll show you how to prepare a mushroom to taste like something completely familiar.
“I’m going to find ways to sell those mushrooms, to excite people, and really open their horizons to using them. Basically, every time I get a chance, I’m going to talk about how they can turn it into seafood, turn it into chicken, turn it into pork. And I’m going to show them three different ways. If I can get 45 minutes of their time, I can show them. Well, maybe an hour.”
Musinski will continue operating his mobile Water & Wheat food trailer and plans to be active through markets, festivals, fundraisers, and private events. He’s also focusing on selling fresh mushrooms and his Fernberry Farm brand of spices. Until the end of March, you can find him every other week at Dagger Mountain in Valparaiso partnering with the House of Rufus bakery.
Asked if he has any regrets about the restaurant, Musinski admits he wasn’t the best boss in the kitchen and went through several cooks and dishwashers, probably because he was very demanding and expected a lot.
“There’s no reason to be mean or nasty [but] for one reason or another, I was. That’s the biggest regret — personally not dealing with all the stress as well as I wish I would have.”
Musinski says the stress wasn’t related as much to the business as it was to the pressure of making sure every person’s first vegan experience was a great experience.
“When you’re working in the back and you’re cooking and one reluctant omnivore gets dragged in here, it could determine their whole future perception of vegan cuisine, of the vegan movement. It kind of carried that weight, and I tried to hold everyone else to it.”
Musinski says since he posted on social media about closing the restaurant and stepping down production, people have been reaching out to him to ask if everything is alright.
“I kind of didn’t realize how big of a factor we are in people’s lives until we started to take it away. I do apologize for maybe not preparing people enough to be able to cut them off from our products. But that’s why we’re going to have the cookbook and the classes to really help people still access the recipes to make batches at home.”
The cookbook Musinski is referring to is something he hopes to self-publish by this summer. It’s his way of saying sorry to his loyal customers, and a way to keep the vegan food movement moving forward.
“[We’ll] have over 100 recipes from the restaurant and the food service line. It’ll be everyone’s favorites and they’ll hopefully have enough instructions to make all of our meats at home. We’ll be teaching classes and hopefully helping people learn how to execute those meats in professional ways so that other people can carry the mantle and keep making vegan foods accessible to our community.”
Although Musinski can look back on what he might have done differently, he also takes pride in Water & Wheat becoming something more than a restaurant.
“It was a great time to be able to do it and be able to show people in the community what vegan food can be and also to show people around the region where vegan food could flourish. [We] acted as a bit of a progressive beacon for certain people. We became known as a kind of safe place and welcoming place for people who are different or are marginalized for one reason or another. We have really cherished that the most — being able to be there.”
Water & Wheat is selling equipment and other items from their production kitchen, restaurant, and catering service. Their Hagar Shores location is open through Saturday (or until everything is sold), noon to 5 pm each day.
You can find current information about upcoming Water & Wheat events, the Fernberry Farm spices, and class schedules at their website, https://www.waterandwheat.com/.
