“Dev’’ is Devin Stehlin. With Leif Johnson, Seyler and Stehlin are the owners of Shady Oaks Organics (www.shadyoaksorganics.com), which has started operations in new digs here after a pilot run in Middleton last year. The three friends hope to make a success selling mushrooms to chefs and shoppers hungry for organic, locally grown food.
The business requires finicky standards of cleanliness and knowledge of mushroom behavior and restaurant demand. Building that 35-foot-long greenhouse wasn’t easy either.
“It’s like an Erector set,’’ said Stehlin.
‘It’s 4,000 parts and 80 pages of instructions,’’ Seyler said, shaking his head.
Seyler, 23, and Stehlin, 24, both of Newburyport, have been friends since fifth grade. Johnson, 23, grew up in a military family, meaning he moved around a lot. He and Seyler became friends at James Madison University in Virginia, while Stehlin was at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Johnson began spending holidays with Seyler’s family in Newburyport when his parents were overseas. Now he lives here too, and all three are working other jobs while trying to get Shady Oaks up and running.
Mushrooms entered the picture while Stehlin worked in the dining room at local restaurant Ten Center Street when he wasn’t at college. Getting interested in the food world, he began foraging for mushrooms in woods around Newburyport, a pursuit that turned out to be both delicious and modestly lucrative. (Caution: The Shady Oaks team warns against eating wild mushrooms. When it comes to foraging, they say, a little knowledge can be dangerous.)
