A Life Built Around the Table

Erin French’s business has grown around a dining room with fifty seats. The Lost Kitchen, in Freedom, Maine, has become a destination, but its scale still gives the story a human measure. The enterprise begins with people sitting down to eat in the town where its founder grew up.

French learned early at her father’s diner. Later, cookbooks became her education as she developed her own approach to food. The Lost Kitchen’s setting in a historic mill brings that path back to its starting point: a Maine childhood, local ingredients and the work of making people feel welcome.

The route was anything but straight. In the introduction to her first cookbook, French described raising her young son, working in a kitchen-supply store and collecting books and equipment. Catering led to private suppers in her apartment. Family and friends helped finance a restaurant. After losing that first restaurant amid the end of her marriage in 2013, she rebuilt, taking dinners on the road in a 1965 Airstream.

That history makes the restaurant’s intimacy feel earned. A supper in an apartment depends on the cook, the room and the guests. French learned to bring those elements together before the business had the setting for which it is now known. Her early work also offers a concrete picture of entrepreneurship: skills accumulated through jobs, a small circle willing to back an idea, and another attempt when plans collapse.

Today, the business extends beyond dinner. Macmillan’s author profile lists a farmers’ market, overnight cabins, a retail shop and the Little Lost Kitchen café. Each gives people another way to encounter the place. The restaurant remains the center, while lodging, shopping and more casual food broaden the experience around it.

Her books carry that sensibility into homes elsewhere. Big Heart Little Stove gathers gestures she uses in her own dining room: table decorations found close at hand, edible flowers and a cold cloth offered on a warm day. These are small acts of attention, accessible without an elaborate kitchen or an expensive collection of tableware.

That is also the personal texture of the brand. French’s world is recognizable through objects people use: a skillet, a plate, something grown outdoors and brought to the table. The online shop sells kitchen and home goods alongside the books. It makes the connection between hospitality and everyday living visible, rather than leaving the business entirely inside a special-occasion restaurant.

Her third cookbook, Seize the Supper, is scheduled for October 13, 2026, with a tour that takes the story beyond Maine again. The calendar includes travel and public appearances, but the books continue to point readers toward gathering at home.

French has built an enterprise with several ways in, yet the invitation stays consistent. Come to the mill, cook from a book, spend a night or sit down for something simpler at the café. The business grows through those different encounters, while a small town and the pleasures of a shared meal give it a center.