Thyme & Co.'s Boss Builds A Kinder, Gentler Cafe In Hudson
Thyme & Co. is a little Hudson cafe creating a comfortable space for patrons and staff.
A spread of specials at Thyme & Co. Photos courtesy of Thyme & Co. (all photos provided by Thyme and Co.
If you’re going to run a successful business on Warren Street in Hudson these days, you’ve got to bring something special to the table. To last here, you’ve got to have a voice and a passion. Despite its prime location in, essentially, the center of the city, 437 Warren was a bit of a revolving door.
Enter Thyme & Co., a humble breakfast and lunch café with quirk and charm and a purposefully gentler approach towards the traditionally more aggressive attitude prevalent in foodservice kitchens. Bolstered by a small but confident menu and a skilled cast of friends, the cozy eatery’s owner, Carrie Fogg-Shaw, is showing that your voice doesn’t have to be loud to project your passion.
“I’ve worked in a number of restaurants and I had a couple of issues with the traditional kitchen. It was very militant. Chefs tend to be very combative even in these fine dining places,” said Fogg-Shaw, who opened her café in December of 2018 with her wife Rebecca. “It’s strange and frankly here I was like, to hell with the rules and the structure.”
The porchetta special at Thyme & Co.
As her new business grew, she pulled what was productive from the NYC kitchens she'd worked in, while maintaining a positive working environment with the professional culinary friends she’s brought along for the ride.
“I couldn’t really find a kitchen where I felt like I fit in, so I decided I had to make one,” she said.
The menu is small and comfort food-centric. But simple dishes and more elaborate specials are elevated by a passion for quality local ingredients that drew Fogg-Shaw up the river in the first place. She was inspired by her externship at the heralded Blue Hill at Stone Barns to eventually open her first restaurant in the Hudson Valley. Now, along with breakfast and lunch, they’re also building a catering program that’s shown early success.
For breakfast, a simple egg and cheese sandwich ($5, $8 with bacon, sausage or avocado) or a burrito ($10) take their simple premisses to the next level with excellent ingreedients. There is also a beautiful and packed Mediterranean grain bowl ($12) and a winter citrus salad ($12) that highlights seasonality and brightens the gloom.
The lunch menu is headlined by a meatball sandwich, which just underwent a metamorphosis thanks to the chefs’ recent trip to Spain. The sandwich is now an albondigas, with Fat Apple Farm pork meatballs, tomato salsa, provolone and garlic braised greens ($13). There is also a sexy BLT spiked with green goddess dressing ($9), a roasted tomato and fennel sandwich ($11) and a couple of wraps. Meat options jump off the page, but the many vegetarian options are just as alluring and complex.
The list of mainstays is short, but regulars’ eyes are always on the specials board. Recent and recurring highlights include porcheta and short rib sandwiches, a gorgeous charred cauliflower sandwich and a vegan “cream” of broccoli soup. Sweet treats like cookies, doughnuts, and cakes are usual suspects on the countertop, as well.
Fogg-Shaw is originally from Connecticut but spent the last decade in the city, first at New York University studying literature and then at the Institute of Culinary Education. She bounced around notable but decidedly unfriendly kitchens (Blue Hill excluded), worked in the wine industry and cooked for a time at a bed and breakfast in France. When looking for a Hudson Valley town to set down roots she said, as so many have before, Hudson just “felt right.”
“For me, our culture is just as important as the food we serve and I think for a lot of chefs that sometimes gets lost,” said Fogg-Shaw. “Everyone has a different style and I respect people who are more militant in fine dining but I don’t work well with that and I think there are a lot of people in the industry who are similar thinking.”
The team: Carrie Fogg-Shaw, Sam Tavormina (crouching), Aaron Boisvert, Isiah Juarez, and Anna Barbara
The pull of the Hudson Valley landed the Fogg-Shaws in Hudson because the culture felt open to businesses looking to do their own thing.
“The more open-minded the town, the more open-minded the businesses can be,” she said. “For me, when I first came here I saw MOTO, a coffee shop with motorcycle accessories, and somehow that works and is cool here. I thought, 'That’s perfect. They’re open to things that might be a little different.'”
Hudson has always thrived because of its menagerie of unique personalities. Thyme & Co. fits in by standing out.
Thyme & Co.
437 Warren St., Hudson, N.Y.
Open Friday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–7 p.m.
Sunday–Monday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
