The former Turnpike Inn at 1440 Route 66 in Ghent sat empty for years after it closed sometime in the 2010s. It has reopened as The Tavern at Liberty Farms, which launched its full menu on Tuesday. The restaurant centers its menu on rotisserie-roasted meats and seasonal vegetables from a nearby 600-acre organic farm.
The farm behind the tavern is part of a Columbia County operation that Liberty Farms owner Mark Cheffo has developed over more than fifteen years. According to Chronogram Magazine, Cheffo moved to the Hudson Valley in 2005 and purchased Liberty Farms in 2009. The certified organic farm now raises pigs, sheep, cows, and thousands of free-range chickens. The outlet reports that Cheffo describes its regenerative approach as using crop and grazing rotation to manage soil health and control erosion.
The building’s earlier identity remains part of its local history. Madeline Blasko and her late husband Donald bought the Turnpike Inn in 1977 and ran it for decades, attracting regulars with Genesee Cream Ale on tap and the Big Bad Don Burger, topped with pepperoni and tiger sauce, according to Chronogram’s 2013 coverage. The renovated space now has a 50-seat dining room and an adjoining pub with banquettes, leather armchairs, and a communal farm table, the magazine notes.
The Farm at the Center of the Menu
Chef Tom Ellis leads the kitchen, bringing experience in open-fire cooking and whole-animal roasting. Chronogram reports that Ellis met Cheffo through catering events at the farm’s wedding venue, The Barn. Ellis also founded Hudson Valley catering company The Swell Party, which specializes in open-fire cooking and whole-animal roasting, according to Time Out. At the tavern, a custom open-flame rotisserie is designed to roast meats and vegetables at once.
The dining-room menu has four entrees, including a $45 roasted leg of lamb with turnips, tomatoes, greens, and johnny cakes, and a $30 vegetarian plate of charred cabbage romesco with butternut squash spaetzle, apple, and mashed greens. Starters include $14 chicken liver mousse with housemade matzoh and a $14 delicata squash dish with cranberry, apricot, charred shallots, and rosemary agrodolce, according to the restaurant’s menu.
Pub Food, Cocktails, and an Expanding Sunday Schedule
The adjoining pub offers a more casual menu, including an $18 organic beef smash burger made with Liberty Farms beef, fries, and coleslaw, and $11 spaghetti and meatballs en broquette. The cocktail list includes a $13 Hemingway daiquiri and a $15 kir royale; beers on tap include Polished Pilsner and Farmer’s Daughter Rye Pale Ale at $7 each. Wine by the glass ranges from $10 to $14.
The tavern had been serving dinner three nights a week before this week's full menu debut, and it is now open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday starting at 5 p.m. In November, the restaurant plans to add Sunday brunch followed by family-style Sunday roasts, which will run two seatings at a fixed price.
One Piece of a Larger Farm-to-Table Network
The tavern is only the newest addition to a hospitality footprint Liberty Farms has been assembling for years. The farm already operates The Barn at Liberty Farms, a 3,000-square-foot wedding venue converted from a former thoroughbred stallion barn that still has eight original horse stalls repurposed into lounge areas and food stations, according to Liberty Farms, with capacity for up to 150 seated guests per Zola. There is also The STAY at Liberty Farms, a boutique glamping retreat at 129 Ostrander Road featuring ten safari-style canvas cabins and a central communal lodge that operates seasonally from Memorial Day through autumn, as described by Columbia County Tourism.
Liberty Farms also runs a 20-week CSA program offering flowers, produce, and eggs, and maintains farm stores in both Ghent and Brooklyn to get its organic goods in front of New York City shoppers. The farm's closed-loop regenerative livestock program is led by a livestock manager named Frankie, who raises pigs, sheep, cattle, and free-range chickens using pasture rotation and locally grown feed, according to My Neighbor's Tallow.
What County Farm Data Can—and Can’t—Show
The USDA’s 2017 Columbia County profile listed 518 farms and reported $88,432,000 in agricultural products sold, up 33% from 2012, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Those are countywide figures, not sales by Liberty Farms or local restaurants. The reported figures provide context for overall farm numbers and agricultural product sales, but they do not establish how direct farm sales or agritourism changed, or how Columbia County compares with New York State on those measures. They therefore cannot show whether either activity has grown alongside the tavern’s opening.
The tavern's farm-driven, live-fire approach fits into a broader pattern across the region, where open-fire dining has become something of a signature draw, from Ellis's own open-fire dinner series on Governors Island in May 2024 to the Columbia Land Conservancy's Beauty & Bounty barbecue, per Time Out's reporting. Ghent itself has increasingly positioned itself as a destination beyond agriculture, home to the sculpture park Art Omi, whose commissioned works have gone on to debut in major cities, including Alexandre Arrechea's 23-foot playable basketball-hoop tree that later landed in Raleigh's Dix Park and performance artist Kinlaw's aerial piece that went on to Times Square.
