Charlie McManus hails from Northern Ireland, and farming runs in his blood. His family's dairy farm has passed from generation to generation, spanning more than a century. So it's no surprise that, as chef and co-owner of the upscale Primo Grill in Tacoma, which serves Mediterranean cuisine, McManus honors and supports local farms by buying, preparing and serving the crops they grow and the livestock they raise.

He doesn't consider himself an environmentalist per se, but he fully understands the shift under way in the United States: More-affluent consumers are patronizing upscale restaurants that serve fresh and locally grown produce; television shows and networks, including the Food Network, have cropped up to feed foodies and wannabes; and restaurants increasingly are marketing themselves as places where customers may proudly say the food on their plate came from a local farm, not from an overseas commercial agricultural giant. In fact, locally grown produce and organic produce ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, on the "Top 20 Hot Items for 2007" compiled by the National Restaurant Association in a survey of 1,146 members of the American Culinary Federation. (No. 1 was bite-size desserts; trimming the fat extends beyond the supply chain, apparently).

The 47-year-old McManus, whose Irish accent pleasantly bends words like Pierce County, where at least two of his farmer-suppliers work, into "Pierce C-owe-nty," puts it this way: "We're positioning ourselves in the marketplace as a company that cares about the environment and cares about local issues, and cares about farmers and the connection between farmers and ourselves."

Among Primo Grill's local suppliers are Terries Berries in the Puyallup Valley; All Natural Pigs in Tacoma; Thurston County farmer Jerry Stokesberry, who provides free-range and organic chickens; the Nisqually Tribe, which supplies sustainably harvested king salmon; and Kamilche Sea Farms, which delivers mussels. The local arrangements are good business for both McManus and the local farmers. McManus, who co-owns Primo Grill with his wife, Jacqueline Plattner, says the restaurant, since opening in 1999, has grown a "very strong" base of customers, including those who dine there multiple times in a year. And, in September 2007, McManus opened another establishment, Crown Bar, which is a short walk from Primo Grill in Tacoma's thriving Sixth Avenue business district.

Dick Carkner, co-owner of Terries Berries, which grows strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, among other crops, says people come to his farm after seeing its name on the menu at Primo Grill. "We've had customers dine out at Charlie's and then look at the menu and then come to us to buy some summer squash," he says. Mc- Manus revels in his relationships with farmers like Carkner. He says it helps keep local farms, threatened by sprawl, in production. It's an ethical way of doing business, "a very important way of doing business."