By ERIC AYRES

WHEELING — Chef Matt Welsch of Vagabond Kitchen weaved a unique theme about both his travel experiences and his strong West Virginia roots into the character of his restaurant, an establishment that is poised to serve as a cornerstone in heart of a city that is literally being reconstructed around the business.

After a decade of operating in the heart of downtown Wheeling, Vagabond Kitchen has taken Welsch on a wild ride since he landed back in the Northern Panhandle. He saw promise and potential in the Friendly City even before others started the welcome trend of investing in the downtown, helping to spark a rebirth of sorts.

The story of Welsch’s journey as a “Vagabond Chef” is one he’s told many times, and it’s one that started out West and continues to this day in the Ohio Valley.

“In 2013, I left a position at a cross-country ski lodge (in Idaho) where I was a sous chef, and I rode my motorcycle 13,000 miles across the country researching different restaurants, talking to people about what they were doing, how they were doing it and why they were doing it that way,” he said. “At the end of that year, I found myself back here at home in the Ohio Valley, and everyone was really interested in my experiences and what I had seen in my travels, and I ended up opening up the Vagabond Kitchen that June in 2014.”

Even before his cross-country adventures, the Marshall County native actually started cooking professionally while attending West Liberty University. He studied not the culinary arts but English literature and philosophy.

“I already had an art degree, so of course, I ended up cooking,” Welsch laughed. “The kitchen has always felt like home. It takes a special breed of people to live this life. I saw those other people and said ‘these are my people — I’m one of them.’ It just fit.”

Vagabond Kitchen started its operations out of a space in the McLure Hotel.

Initial plans to relocate fell through during a hectic period when Welsch was also working for the Wheeling Brewing Company and taking care of their menu while also operating a lunch counter in the basement of the First State Capital building.

In January 2017, the invitation came to open the Vagabond Kitchen at 1201 Market Street.

“And we’ve been open here ever since,” Welsch said. “When we started out, we were really focused on lunch — serving the lunch crowd in downtown Wheeling.”

A few years after settling into the site in the heart of the city, things took a turn … on a global scale.

“Of course, everyone got slapped down by the pandemic,” Welsch said. “We went from 13 services a week to five, so we cut out lunch entirely. Currently, Vagabond Kitchen operates Wednesday through Saturday. We do dinner, and on Sunday we do brunch.”

From the woes of the pandemic to the challenges of the state’s ongoing Downtown Streetscape Project, the crew at Vagabond Kitchen has toughed it out and is ready for the downtown to rebound — with hopes of bringing back lunch services in the future and expanding operating hours.

“Now we’re looking to kind of recover from all of that,” Welsch said. “We’ve got to get through the pandemic hangover.”

Vagabond Kitchen got caught on all sides of the $35 million Streetscape work — with that section of Market Street closed for months for storm sewer installation, then subsequently impacted again with sidewalk demolition and reconstruction.

“We’ve kind of been stuck in the pandemic since 2020,” Welsch said of the challenges. “Hopefully the Streetscape project will be done on or close to on time, then we can finally take some steps back in the right direction and back to being in the heart of downtown Wheeling.”

In terms of the food service industry as a whole, the impact of the pandemic changed things for restaurants in many ways. Outdoor dining availability has been viewed universally as a positive trend, but thin crowds forced many businesses to cut corners — especially in terms of food preparation.

“The pandemic really pushed a lot of people over the edge,” Welsch said. “A lot of places are doing pre-made food now — a lot of places are freezer to fryer. There are very, very few chef-driven, curated restaurants that have kind of a higher mission for food — especially areas like West Virginia.”

Welsch said people often think of traditional diners when envisioning hometown “mom and pop” eateries, but independent restaurants that want to bring artistry to their menu selections can’t cut corners with quality when business slows down.

“You see those types of restaurants in bigger cities like Pittsburgh or Columbus … but the locally owned and operated restaurant people who are passionate about cuisine and what they’re doing, those folks are dinosaurs these days, and there just aren’t many of us left,” Welsch said.

Over the past couple of years, Vagabond Kitchen has seen big crowds and lines with wait times on nights when events are taking place downtown, but then occasionally on non-event nights, they may see “tumbleweeds” blowing down Market Street. The “feast or famine” nature of Wheeling’s downtown crowds makes staffing tricky and can be challenging in light of the fact that the food on the menu is made fresh every day.

Yet downtown Wheeling is undoubtedly undergoing a transformation that promises to bring more people out and about. If that promise delivers, Vagabond Kitchen will stand strong as one of the early pioneers in the city’s new renaissance.

“I can promise that I never stop dreaming and planning for the future, and trying to make this place more special to offer a more unique experience to folks and to continue that better and better,” Welsch said.

Currently, Welsch has been a busy man with many irons in the fire.

He became executive chef for West Virginia State Parks and also works with the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition promoting products made in the Mountain State.

“Those are wonderful, absolutely great positions that help me get my message out across the state and even beyond our state’s borders, but it takes me away from the restaurant, obviously,” Welsch said, noting that he’s currently searching for a general manager to help at Vagabond Kitchen.

Topping his already busy list of priorities, Welsch also became a father. Yet the chef still has plans cooking for Vagabond Kitchen’s future.

“I would like to do some updates to the restaurant itself,” he said, noting that outdoor dining may be in the cards after the Streetscape is completed. “This is a passion project and a dream for me to fulfill my vision for this place. Just figuring out how to get there and put the pieces together — it’s been a journey.”

Welsch said he wants to continue to refine the signature cuisine and unique experience the restaurant has to offer its patrons — aspects of his business that have taken great strides over the past decade.

“As far as progress, one of the very positive things about the past 10 years is I feel that we’ve gotten closer to my vision for the food that I want to be offering here and the menus that I want to be doing, and that’s been really, really encouraging to see,” Welsch said. “I’m tentatively excited for the future. When I first moved back home, I just saw potential everywhere. We need enough people to get on board to make it happen, as a community.

“We can’t go back in time. We shouldn’t be bemoaning about what we used to be, we should be working toward what we can be. Let’s look to the future. No one person can do it alone — the entire community has to get behind it.”