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Peaks of Otter Lodge opens daily for the season with redesigned restaurant and sustainable menu

Delaware North has brought fresh changes to dining at Peaks of Otter Lodge, the Blue Ridge Mountains destination on the Blue Ridge Parkway that the company’s parks and resorts business operates for the National Park Service.
 
When the lodge moved to a daily – rather than the winter weekend – operating schedule in mid-March for the new season, guests immediately experienced a remodeled restaurant with new buffet stations. The project included the installation of new light fixtures and flooring in the restaurant and fresh paint throughout the lodge. Furnishings were also upgraded in the lodge’s 63 rooms.
 
“It has already created a favorable experience for our guests. They walk in and say, ‘Wow, you have peaksofotterbuffetrenovation_360-3626086made some major changes … and the place is absolutely gorgeous,’” Peaks of Otter Lodge General Manager Andrew Mather recently told Virginia television station WBDJ.
 
On April 11, the lodge’s new executive chef, Heather Cash, who had served as a sous chef for Delaware North at Skyland Resort in Shenandoah National Park, unveiled a new farm-to-table menu, along with a sustainability program to make good use of food waste.
 
The lodge is working with Roanoke-based Produce Source Partners, Virginia’s largest independent produce distributor, which works with local farms to source produce and meat. Meanwhile, food waste is being donated to Great Day Gardens in nearby Forest, which then composts the materials to turn it into healthy soil – which is needed for producing high-quality organic vegetables.
 
“This is extremely beneficial for the community as it closes the loop between high-cost farm essentials and the 40 percent of food wasted in the country,” Cash said.
 
Delaware North has also unveiled a similar farm-to-table menu at Shenandoah’s Skyland Resort and Big Meadows Lodge.