After flirting with the idea of eclectic retail goods and elegant dining together in a single setting, Urban Outfitters is hitching the combination for good by acquiring The Vetri Family restaurants.

“Spending on casual dining is expanding rapidly, and thus, we believe there is tremendous opportunity to expand the Pizzeria Vetri concept,” CEO Richard A. Hayne said in an announcement.

The $2 billion lifestyle merchandise empire previously experimented with restaurant partnership, and is badly in need of a boost to its bottom line — stock is half of what it was early this year, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

“Consumers just aren’t going to stores and spending as much as they used to,” the article stated.

“… Until they invent actual replicators like on Star Trek, e-commerce is not a threat to the restaurant business,” Chief Development Officer Dave Ziel said in the piece.

While it may seem like an odd marriage, Hayne is no stranger to fine food — he owns the expansive 700-acre Doe Run Farm in southern Chester County, with its “rolling fields of malting barley and a sprawling garden medley that includes everything from luminous, silken onions and dusky cabbages to green and yellow zephyr squash and plump, old-fashioned field pumpkins,” a Main Line Today feature described. “Glowing carpets of sunflowers, orchards, handcrafted cheeses, free grazing cows, sheep and goats — it’s all a living lab for small-scale, 21st-century farming.”

And it’s a farm-to-table extravaganza that has been a boon to local restaurants.

“First and foremost, I purchased the property as a home. But I also see a ‘culinary arboretum,’ defining arboretum expansively,” Hayne told Main Line Today in 2011. “We’re still exploring possibilities, but I don’t expect us to be on the shelves of Whole Foods.”

Hayne is now extending his influence all the way to the dining table.

“It’s a perfect match,” said chef Marc Vetri, award-winning creator of the franchise that brings a bold, contemporary sensibility to classic Italian cooking. “(Urban Outfitters) and the Vetri Family share the same singular goal: We pride ourselves on bringing the best possible experience to our customers and community. Through this partnership, and the experience (Urban Outfitters) has in scaling growth opportunities, the Vetri Family will now be able to focus on what we do best – run restaurants that make people happy.”

Read much more about the unique deal in The Wall Street Journal here, about the Urban Outfitters-Vetri partnership at Devon Yard on VISTA Today here, and Hayne’s agrarian ambitions in Main Line Today here.