Courtney McGuiness had big plans for February school vacation.

Though J’s Restaurant at the Nashoba Valley Winery in Bolton, where McGuiness is the manager, was closed that week, the eatery was still busy.

“With the restaurant closed, the wait staff will reupholster the chairs, use Murphy’s Oil Soap on the wood walls and hang new curtains,” McGuiness said. “We take a lot of pride in this place. … Because it’s not a chain, it’s a family business, we do a lot of that little stuff. It’s a small staff and we’ve been working together a long time. We all come in and do our dusting.”

On Saturday nights, she added, all the servers are senior staff — the low person on the totem pole has been there for two years.

Though the orchard itself has been around for almost three decades, the restaurant is less than 10 years old, having opened in 1998. McGuiness has been there for five of those years and took over as manager last fall.

The restaurant is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11:30 to 2 for lunch and 5:30 to 9 for dinner. A Sunday brunch is also offered from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Current menu choices include spiced butternut bisque soup, vegan bamboo risotto, east coast bouillabaisse and free range duck and blueberry-merlot venison sausage.

And don’t worry. If you can’t find anything you like, come back later — the menu changes four times a year.

“It changes so it can be seasonal,” McGuiness said. “We grow a lot of our own produce. We have microgreens, tomatoes, and of course the orchard. We don’t sell the greenhouse stuff we just grow it for the restaurant.

The restaurant is housed in a renovated farm house with warm wood walls and the original wide pine-plank floors and seats 84. Located on Wattaquadock Hill Road, it’s tucked off the road in the hills of the apple orchard on the same property.

“I have no idea how they find us,” she said. “It’s a true testimony to the power of word of mouth. The restaurant opened in 1998 and I have to think that the people who were local came to see what was going on. We have both newcomers and regular customers.”

In fact, McGuiness said, that’s one of her favorite parts of the job.

“I love our regular customers,” she said. “I love that Connie is going to come in for lunch, and I’ll buy her a chardonnay, and she’ll hug me hello and goodbye and I love that Bob and Lisa will be here on Saturday for dinner. But I also love it when people come and say it’s their first time. We are excited to have the opportunity to exceed expectations.”

The restaurant also hosts four festivals a year: Taste With Us, Harvest Festival, Oktoberfest and a holiday lighting festival.

“The 2004 Oktoberfest was a madhouse,” McGuiness recalled. “We had an German oom pa pa band booked, and the night before they played at Wachusett Mountain and told people, ‘If you like us, come out to Nashoba tomorrow.’ There were 4,000 people and we ran out of food. It was quite an entertainment problem.”

As with any other job, some days are more challenging than others.

“I’ve been here so long it all just kind of happens,” McGuiness said. “Sometimes it’s hard to be able to meet the requests of some of our customers, because we’re small and eclectic. We try to vary the menu. We try to always have a vegan option, but every now and then you get allergies we can’t accommodate. And sometimes people do not care for fruit wines.

Reservations for both lunch and dinner are encouraged, McGuiness said. They can be made on-line [see below] and it’s advisable to do so two weeks in advance.

“It’s hard to turn folks away, but we have a limit to how many we can please,” she said, as she sorted the new menus into their folders and discussed flower arrangements with owner Richard Pelletier. “I love this industry. It’s different every day.”

J’s Restaurant is located at 92 Wattaquadock Hill Road in Bolton, 978-779-9816. Reservations can also be made on line at www.nashobawinery.com/J.html. Christine Quirk can be reached at cquirk@cnc.com.