Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Ultra-premium extra virgin olive oils — including flavored versions — and specialty dark balsamic vinegars remain a mainstay of recipes prepared at Reese and Riley’s for the new event center and take-out meals.

Reese and Riley’s Olive Oil and Bistro Bar has swept entrepreneur Christine Conrad along a winding path. Now it has led her to a new place where she intends to help families, businesses and organizations host spectacular private occasions with a minimum of hassle – Reed’s Event Center, opening in April in the Azool Shopping Center in south Moorhead.

The past four years have carried Christine through a host of ups and downs. Reese and Riley’s – the name reflects her son’s and daughter’s middle names – was born to share her passion for top quality extra-virgin olive oil, whose health benefits she has advocated since promoting it with a tasting bar in the Twin Cities a decade ago. After moving back to Fargo-Moorhead five years ago, she reprised the concept in her Azool storefront.

Reese and Riley’s thrived with its dual concept. In its first two years, Reese and Riley’s was also buzzing with a limited menu of original cuisine showing off those oils and vinegars. “We were so, so busy,” she remembers.

Christine also focused on selling premium olive oils by the bottle, along with a tasty array of balsamic vinegars. The oil can be infused with added notes – garlic (the most popular), chile pepper, blood orange, basil and herbs, and even the flavor of butter. Her vinegars are enhanced with a long list of complementary flavors, from strawberry and raspberry to coconut, pineapple and cranberry-pear. She recommends adding them to iced tea and water for memorable infused beverages.

Then came Covid-19. When restaurants were closed by state decree in March, she pivoted to freshly made prepared meals, packaging the same dishes she had served in-house for clients to take home. “It wasn’t sustainable,” she admits, especially coupled with lease renegotiations on her space. At the end of 2020, she closed, ostensibly for good. “I sold everything – the equipment, the fixtures,” she says.

But last July, Reese and Riley’s reemerged in the same spot, but reimagined. While the kegs of olive oil and flavored vinegar returned, meal service did not. Instead, her menu of carefully presented take-home dinners took center stage. “People eat out so much, but meal delivery services cost a fortune,” she observes. Instead, her customer come to the coolers in her shop to stock up on freshly prepared meals – homemade pasta prepared as spaghetti and meatballs, traditional lasagna, chicken alfredo and stir fries, along with the flatbreads customers loved from the original shop. Packed in single portions, clients choose the dishes they want for $9.97, then add extras they favor like infused beverages and special desserts.

Meanwhile, Christine – who says, “I’ve worked in restaurants my whole life” – found herself taking on “a ton of catering.” But she didn’t like the way those jobs were normally carried out.

“It’s just a ton of work. Most churches and similar places don’t have kitchens equipped with what I need,” she explains. “You find yourself hauling a ton of stuff to every location. It didn’t make sense to do it that way, especially when I have everything I need in my kitchen here.”

She began to dream of the perfect medium – a catering business based out of her own location. And that’s how Reed’s Event Center was born.

The neighboring storefront at Azool had never been built out for a tenant. She worked out a deal for it, doubling her square footage, and set out to create the special-occasion venue of her – and, she hoped, her clients’ – dreams.

Reed’s Event Center (this time, with the middle name of her younger son) is getting close to opening its doors. While she waits for the final materials needed to ready the space for guests, she has already booked a growing list of special events for after her projected opening in mid-April – bridal showers, wedding receptions, grooms dinners, birthday parties, corporate events and other occasions looking for a home.

Her concept is a little different from other newly opened events venues. “Most other places rent you the space, period. You have to put the rest together yourself,” she says. “Reed’s is different. We simplify. When you come in with a date and a concept of how you’d like your event to be, we’ll do all the rest in line with your wishes. You invite your guests, then leave the rest to us.”

That includes choosing the menu, of course, but goes much farther. Christine provides the décor to go with the client’s theme, the flowers, the disc jockey, the photographer. “It’s a one-step process,” she says.

Providing those decorations and rest is right up her rally. In the Twin Cities, she staged houses for Realtors: “I have a ton of stuff – too much stuff,” she laughs. She worked as a concessionaire at fairs and other events. Those years equipped her with all kinds of unexpected assets, including machines to make cotton candy, popcorn and sno cones, and two bounce houses for the kiddies.

They broadened her menus, too. During three years as a concessionaire at the Metrodome, she invented a spectacular Vikings-pleasing specialty called the Meat Eater, consisting of a cheddar bratwurst wrapped in cheese, a hamburger patty and bacon. She still makes them when catering for the Army National Guard here: “The guys love them.”

Christine has other ideas in mind after Reed’s Event Center gets off the ground. One is a supper club one or two evenings a week, reservations only, serving a prix fixe menu of six or eight choices. Another is theme nights focusing on one cuisine, perhaps Tex-Mex or Italian. She plans to decorate her venue in spectacular fashion for Halloween and Christmas events. Fund-raising events for community groups intrigue her.

“We’re going to take all the work out of hosting social events,” she promises. “And they’re going to be really, really special.”

To discuss available dates and planning events at Reed’s Event Center, call 218-303-1279 or message Christine on Reese and Riley’s Facebook page. Her catering menus and other products can be found online at reeseandrileys.com.