The Gibbet Hill Grill & The Barn at Gibbet Hill

Several people have asked us, "Who are you?" and "How did you get here?" and "What's the story with this property?" All good questions, to be sure!

Click here for a brief history of the property!
Click here for short bios describing who we are, including our featured employee!

The Barns sit on the property of Gibbet Hill Farm, purchased by the Webber family in 2000 in order to prevent extensive development of the land. With help from the town of Groton, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The Groton Conservation Commission, and Lawrence Academy, the Webbers were able to place a conservation restriction on the land, ensuring that the property would never be developed and would remain the rolling hills and grass and working farm you see today.

The barns at the bottom of the hill were built at the turn of the last century; one barn has been converted into The Gibbet Hill Grill and one into The Barn at Gibbet Hill, a function facility. The Grill is intended to be a relaxed, casual restaurant with quality menu items. There’s food on the menu for everyone, and our goal is to have the restaurant be welcoming to any and all who come to visit. We hope to create a place where the town and larger community can feel at home and among friends. The Barn at Gibbet Hill provides a space for weddings and receptions, business conferences, and any and all social and corporate events.

The Webber family hopes that by opening the property to the public, finishing the trails, and offering previously restricted access to the farmland that the Gibbet Hill Grill will become a place everyone in town will experience and enjoy.

THE OWNERS:
Jed Webber, the well-adjusted middle child, has had a variety of management experience in his career. After five years of consulting in New York City, Jed got an MBA from the Darden School in 2000, which included an internship with the PlumpJack restaurant group in San Francisco. Gibbet Hill marks the fourth company that he has started in his career. Jed attended Middlebury College, graduating in 1993 with a double major in Economics and Molecular Biology. He lives in Cambridge with his wife Asia, their daughter Nina and their son Gage.

Josh Webber, the serious, down-to-earth oldest child, has been managing Gibbet Hill Farm since it was purchased by the Webbers. He leads the conservation effort of the land, manages the farm, and retrieves cows that have broken through the fence. Before getting involved in the family business, Josh worked for five years in the mergers and acquisitions group at Morgan Stanley. He received his undergraduate degree in math and economics at Kenyon College, and his MBA from the Darden School at UVA. He and his wife Beth have twin daughters, Sarah and Lily, born in November of 2003, and a son Zack born in May 2005. Josh tends to make pinching motions with his fingers when making a point.

Kate Webber, the youngest and the only girl, received her bachelor's degree in theatre directing and creative writing from Kenyon College. She worked in professional theatre and independent film before moving south to get her Master of Fine Arts in fiction writing from the University of Virginia. Kate is our resident wine director and certified sommelier, and is working towards advanced degrees from Court of Master Sommeliers, Wine and Spirits Education Trust, and the International Sommelier Guild. Kate is also an award-winning pianist, and can say the fifty states in 12.5 seconds.

THE MANAGEMENT TEAM:
Tom Totman, Managing Partner
Tom has been managing restaurants since 1989 in both Boston and San Francisco at such places as Harvard Square’s Border Café, Bertucci’s, Legal Seafoods, and McCormick and Schmick’s in Boston. As Managing Partner at Gibbet Hill, Tom is in charge of both the Grill and the Barn and has discovered all of the secret passageways between the two buildings. We wish for his sake that there was a secret passageway between Groton and Hingham; Tom also works as the Managing Partner at Gibbet Hill’s cousin restaurant, The Scarlet Oak Tavern. Tom's dedication to customer service is legendary, which is why we were so lucky to drag him away from the big city. Tom now lives in Holliston with his wife and two children, Madeline and Julian. In his spare time, Tom likes to the watch the golf channel, including a golf “reality” show.

K.C. O'Hara, Culinary Director
It’s really hard to write K.C.’s bio considering he’s been involved in the Boston restaurant scene for the past 18 years. He’s worked in the kitchen of such esteemed restaurants as Sonsie, The East Coast Grill, Seasons, and The Harvard Faculty Club, all in addition to working as a chef consultant, a recipe developer for cookbooks, and a guest chef at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. K.C. splits his time between Gibbet Hill and Hingham’s Scarlet Oak Tavern, which is a lot of driving considering he lives North of Boston (see above re: plans for secret passageway construction between the two locations). Add to that the fact that he coaches lacrosse in Medford, has a wonderful wife and three children and washes his hat every night, he has the tendency to make the rest of us look kinda lazy. The big jerk.

Carolyn Hilton, Director of Catering Sales and Marketing
Carolyn was raised in Newport, Rhode Island. She attended Johnson & Wales University where she received a degree in culinary arts and pastry as well as hospitality and food service management. After working many years as a chef and caterer in Newport she moved to Boston where she pursued her hospitality career in Event Sales for Marriott and The RitzCarlton Boston. She has also continued her culinary love by catering in the Nashoba Valley area. Carolyn has booked and serviced over one thousand weddings in her career. She lives in Littleton with her family.

Karen Osterberg, Executive Banquet Chef
Karen Osterberg, Executive Banquet Chef, comes to Gibbet Hill from a position as an Executive Banquet Chef at the Kirkbrae Country Club in Rhode Island. After receiving a degree in Culinary Arts from Newbury College, Karen served as a chef, banquet chef, catering chef, and pastry chef in such places as the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Atlanta, Denver, Wilmington, and Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. She has created meals for groups of 20 people and groups of 1,200, including catering a wedding reception for 175 people out of a 14-foot box truck. This March Karen will work her second year in a row as an invited chef at the Masters Golf Tournament in

Georgia

. Karen enjoys motorcycles, the Boston Red Sox, white chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, exercising, and chicken pot pie.

Laura Ferry, Assistant Manager
Laura was lured to Gibbet Hill by friends after falling in love with the setting. She has worked in hotels and restaurants throughout New England as a training manager, an assistant GM, a server, a bartender, an administrator, and she even had a brief stint as an innkeeper. At Gibbet Hill she enjoys sharing the history of the farm with the guests, and she believes that the unique, peaceful surrounding at Gibbet Hill counteracts the craziness of the restaurant business. On her days off she spends time with her children Cole and Paige, “teaching them how to talk and walk and make smart choices.” If she had more free time she would garden and play golf. But—make no mistake—she doesn’t have any more free time.

Lisa Cowles, Assistant Manager
Lisa worked several years at Bertucci’s but she won’t tell us how many because it makes her feel old (she’s not). The restaurant business took a hold of her and never let go: she has worked as a server, a new store opening trainer, an assistant manager, a customer service & risk manager, and a shift supervisor. Lisa has two boys: Zachary, age 9, who thinks he’s going to be the next Manny Ramirez, and Jared, age 6, who can name and describe every planet in the solar system. In her spare time, Lisa likes to drink watermelon martinis, scrub floors, reorganize rooms, and watch Court TV. Which is really weird, frankly. But not nearly as weird as the fact that she actually enjoys jury duty.

Sara Zambuto, Catering Sales Manager
We were lucky (and thrilled!) to grab Sara in September of 2005 to help out with the business in The Barn. Sara has worked for catering companies and restaurants in addition to holding positions as the Banquet Manager and Director of Catering at the Holiday Inn Logan Airport and, most recently, as the Catering Sales Manager at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. Along the way she picked up a degree in dietetics, which she claims is a fancy way of saying "nutrition." In her spare time she likes spending time with her husband Joe and her cat Ziggy, reading, canoeing, planning her garden, renovating her house, and wrapping presents. If Sara won the lottery she would move to Maui and learn how to surf and make jewelry out of coconut shells.

Trevi Robinson, Sous Chef
Trevi graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1998. Born in Bennington, Vermont and raised in Sterling, Mass, this self-proclaimed “Die hard hick” enjoys playing ball with his dog Bailey and wearing flannel on a daily basis. Trevi came to us from several previous cooking and chef-ing stints at such places as the Charter Oak Country Club, Sole Proprietor, and 111 Chop House. Trevi had a first date with a lovely woman named Rachel in 2004 during the ALCS between the Red Sox and the Yankees. The luck of the series must have been very powerful: four years later, they’re set to be married in May. Trevi spends his off days fishing in the Quabbin Reservoir for trout and salmon. Trevi’s future goals include becoming a Charter boat captain and catching “Wall”ter, which is either the name of a fish or a type of fish or a combination of the two, we’re not entirely sure which.

David Osterberg, Sous Chef
David (aka “Chunnie”) comes to us via Johnson & Wales University (Sports/Entertainment and Event Management), Hawai’i Pacific University (Sports Journalism) and, perhaps most notably, a year with Horizons for Homeless Children. An avid community service-man, Dave also organizes charity fund raisers for Gardner Animal Shelter, Care Alliance, and National Elk’s Scholarship Fund. In his spare time (what’s that?) he has written two unpublished novels, won numerous pool championships (beating Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish), and enjoys surfing, getting lost in volcanoes, and writing theories on the Big Bang theory which actually get read by Cosmology faculty at Dartmouth University. During his shifts, Dave likes to compose varying takes on theme songs. For himself. And then teach them to the staff.

Julie Vaughan, Operations Manager
Julie became our banquet manager back in April of 2007, and she couldn’t have come soon enough. Responsible for executing all of our events in the Barn, her organizational skills, multi-tasking abilities, and calm in the face of the storm (and collapsing cake tables) has been invaluable. Her success is no surprise: she studied hotel restaurant management at UMass, has worked as a prep cook, a line cook, a banquet cook, and a front of house manager. A resident of the East Coast since high school (via Wisconsin and Oregon), Julie is the mother of two children, Jack and Lily, who battle it out everyday in their pursuit of careers in the WWF. Julie spends most of her time either tending to her obscene cookbook collection and playing Spiderman with her kids, which goes hand-in-hand with Julie’s skills: as Spiderman always says, “With awesome power comes awesome responsibility.”