With a name inspired by the term for a group of sparrows – a host – a group of four chefs and food lovers are bringing their customers at a new lunch spot downtown.

At the beginning of May, brother and sister Tony and Katie Lemmo opened the Host café along with Lisa Hutchins and Phil Shires. Host, located at 1220 Locust St., brings farm-fresh and organic food to the table directly from local producers during lunch each weekday.

When talking about the restaurant, Katie Lemmo and Kate Hartfelder, the restaurant’s chef, speak of it like family. The Lemmos, Shires and Hutchins have all worked or known each other for a while through working at places like Tony Lemmo’s Café di Scalia. That, coupled with the emphasis on locally produced food featuring some secret Lemmo family recipes, creates the homelike atmosphere of Host.

Hartfelder said keeping the food local is important.

“You have to support your local purveyors,” she said. “It’s a community, and we’re going to support them and they are going to support us.”

The menu consists of what Katie Lemmo described as comfort food – things like pot pies, meatloaf and sandwiches, all which “warm the soul,” she said.

Although the menu is set right now, Hartfelder said it may rotate in the future and they plan to add things with the seasons, because different products are easier to obtain locally at different times of the year. Most of the produce, she said, is coming from Larry Cleverley, a farmer who is also giving the group a plot of land to grow their own food.

Along with the secret Lemmo family recipes, the Lemmo’s mother will also be adding a personal touch to the restaurant creating different flavored popcon.

“Cooking is in our blood,” Lemmo said.

Currently, Host is only open for lunch, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, but Lemmo and Hartfelder said that could change in the future. But, for now, the location lends itself well to the lunch crowd because of its proximity to several downtown insurance companies.

“We want people to come in here and get their food quickly but also have a great product with great quality,” Hartfelder said.