A restaurant in a deserted village became a sought-after internet-famous destination

"#192 is my lucky number."

"It's like winning the lottery," this customer said happily.

After calling countless times, they finally managed to book a table at The Lost Kitchen.

Located in the small town of Freedom, Maine, USA, which has a population of only 719 (latest count), this small restaurant, The Lost Kitchen, has recently become one of the most popular destination restaurants in the United States.

This restaurant, located in a remote, desolate village, is open only in spring, summer and autumn. As soon as reservations open, it triggers a frenzy of phone bookings.

How exactly did they do it? Many media outlets endlessly discuss the success model of this small restaurant, sparking widespread discussion online.

The Lost Kitchen's website doesn't have much of an introduction. The simple page has no advanced online reservation service, just one reservation phone number.

When you finally get through, the person who answers is the owner Erin French's mother, who is in her sixties.

The elderly woman still upholds the old rule of first come, first served: whoever gets through first gets the reservation number.

From May 1st to New Year's Eve, this small restaurant is open only 8 months a year. Every year, phone reservations open on the morning of April 1st, and the calls come in nonstop.

According to Erin, on the first day of April, they received more than 10,000 calls.

Asked how she started running the restaurant and what her secret to success is,

"It was all by accident," said Erin, the owner and head chef, a 36-year-old single mother.

In fact, before opening the restaurant, apart from carrying burgers at her parents' small restaurant when she was 14, Erin's life had almost nothing to do with cooking.

After graduating from high school, Erin attended Northeastern University, a prestigious school in Boston. After graduation, she went to California to work. Her dream was to become a doctor.

However, when Erin was 21, an unexpected pregnancy ended her plans. She could only return to her hometown and settle in the town of Belfast.

Returning from a bustling big city to her hometown small town, Erin, who was independently raising her son Jaim, made a living by selling her own baked goods and working as a waitress at a restaurant.

While working at the restaurant, Erin gradually learned the basics of cooking and even discovered her talent for it.

At the age of 30, she decided to start her own business. She opened a secret supper club in her own kitchen, naming it The Lost Kitchen. Her first guests were all her own relatives and friends, and even the meal fee was a pay-what-you-want, donate-anything arrangement.

Erin's culinary talent quickly showed. She frantically studied new recipes, and with her creativity and cooking skills, she kept developing surprising new dishes. With no fixed menu, this supper club was refreshing every time.

So word spread from one to ten and from ten to a hundred. The Lost Kitchen, this secret little club, quickly became a well-known dining spot locally.

So Erin and her then-husband bought an old barn. After five months of renovation, she opened her first restaurant: The Lost Kitchen.

"At the time, this restaurant was too popular. You could say I became a local celebrity overnight," said Erin in an interview with The New York Times.

However, good times did not last. Two years later, a malicious divorce lawsuit broke Erin's heart and left her with nothing, including her savings, the restaurant, the house, and even an old vase her grandmother had left her. Apart from retaining the restaurant's name, The Lost Kitchen, everything returned to how it was more than a decade earlier.

So she could only take her son back to Freedom again. With her parents' financial support, she bought a 1965 Airstream old camper and, hammering away herself, converted its interior into a kitchen.

Thus The Lost Kitchen became a mobile restaurant, providing dinner and meal services across Maine.

In 2013, Erin noticed an abandoned old mill by the town waterfall that was always sitting idle.

"The first time I saw it, I realized it belonged to me." Never discouraged, Erin persuaded her investors (her parents and relatives and friends) to fund her purchase of the mill.

Many people were not optimistic about Erin opening a restaurant in this remote small town. "Who would drive for hours all the way out here to eat?" said those who opposed her.

But her mother, who always supported her, did not doubt Erin's decision.

With her mother's support, Erin renovated the abandoned mill. She bought many old pieces of furniture and old wooden boards from flea markets and did the renovation herself. Under Erin's skillful hands, the mill took on a new look, and The Lost Kitchen reopened here.

Walking in now, what people step on is thick wooden flooring full of patina. The dining tables here are the most traditional farmhouse tables Erin found at secondhand markets, and the roof still has the mill's former suspension frame.

Everything is full of the rich New England pastoral flavor of the American Northeast.

Not only the space is like this; Erin's dishes are even more full of the breath of nature. With the freshest vegetables, fruits, milk and meat bought from local farms, Erin always finds a way to create astonishing deliciousness in simple ways.

Although located in a small town with inconvenient transportation and a sparse population, Erin, described by food critics as having "a kind of extraordinary magic," attracts a steady stream of customers.

Many people make a special trip by car from New York just to dine here.

"Maine is an important agricultural state in the US, and the area has long produced many kinds of vegetables and fruits. My cooking style represents both myself and the characteristics of this place. Everything comes from the local area, everything comes from what is picked fresh."

"Although I never really spent time in the kitchen growing up, following my mother and grandmother around the kitchen meant I was influenced by what I saw and heard. The dishes I make are all the simplest, most traditional American food, containing the previous generation's philosophy of living with nature."

Erin commented on her own cooking this way.

Her way of cooking is not like many chefs, who always plan the menu in advance. Instead, it is very spontaneous. For example, one day the cauliflower in her farmer friend's field ripened, and they sent her a photo during the day. By evening, that cauliflower had become food on the guests' tables in the restaurant.

The staff at the restaurant are all local farmers, many of them friends who grew up with Erin.

One visitor commented, "In this restaurant, we hardly feel like we are dining out. Its atmosphere is very relaxed and warm, with a feeling of family."

Back then, Erin named her restaurant The Lost Kitchen, thinking she wanted to restore that beautiful kitchen life that had disappeared and that people yearned for.

Even though a table is hard to get, Erin is unwilling to expand her business scale, and even more unwilling to extend the hours.

"Having gone through many low points in life, I understand that the most important things in life are still warm family and friends," said Erin.

This is an age of lost speed. In pursuit of success, people give up their own lives, betray their friends, pollute their own homelands, and recklessly plunder the resources of nature.

Erin, who returned to her hometown, rediscovered through food the relationships between people and the land, between people and people, between people and things, and between people and nature. She awakened in many people the innate desire to return to the countryside and return to nature. Her restaurant has already become a legend.