Many chefs work hand in hand with local food producers, leading the way toward a more sustainable food system. We are thrilled to support these chefs and the good work they do through the Eat Well Guide, our curated directory of 25,000+ restaurants, markets, farms and other vendors of locally grown and sustainably produced food throughout the US. We also love highlighting their wonderful work in the series, Our Heroes.
This week we profile Chef Lyn Harwell, founder of Seeds Community Cafe in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In this interview, his wife Sharon Dominguez Harwell explains what it means to serve local, sustainable food to their community, including many meals paid for through volunteer work at the restaurant. You can find their Eat Well Guide listing here.
What type of cuisine do you serve at your restaurant, and how do local and sustainable ingredients factor into your menu?
Seeds serves a variety of cuisine, but our emphasis is on food that is healthy and food that is fresh. So, an omnivore will find organic meat choices, a vegetarian will find several vegetarian choices and a vegan will also find vegan choices. We make all of our own recipes, but many of the recipes we use are tweaked from family and customer favorites. Early on in life, Chef Lyn helped make up the family menus and learned the art of making "something for everyone."
Depending on fresh produce that's available, you'll find dishes that are delicious and locally sourced, such as our signature Vegan Veggies, the Incredible ABC Burger, vegan gluten free pizza, Grilled Chicken with Spinach and Artichoke, Colorado Calabacitas and Kale Caesar Salad.
After many years in the food and hospitality industry, Harwell says he was overwhelmed with the amount of need and the number of those who are food insecure. On the other side of the coin, he was overwhelmed with the amount of food that was wasted in the hospitality industry. Those two thoughts eventually percolated together and Seeds was born.
As for how local and sustainable ingredients factor into our menu, the answer is simple. We use fresh local ingredients whenever possible. If it's in season in Colorado, you'll see it on the menu at Seeds. And as for our support of sustainability, we work with local small farmers as well as backyard gardeners to develop and grow sustainable crops - and we are constantly looking into ways to support the use of greenhouses and other alternate growing scenarios so that more fresh product will be available in Colorado than our own normal short growing season would support.
About how many meals do you serve a day? How big is your staff?
The numbers of meals we serve each day varies, as does the number of meals paid for by donations as opposed to those traded for volunteer service. An average of meals for us would be about 65 paid, 20 in exchange for volunteering, so an average of 85 to 90 meals total a day. We have only four paid staff members, but we make up a daily schedule that includes a maximum of 18 volunteers. Our mission is to empower people to own their own lives again through the power of food. For us, a delicious, healthy meal is just the conversation starter.
How often do you and/or your staff visit your favorite farms and/or farmers markets?
We visit farms and farmers' markets as often as we possibly can. We sometimes have far more invitations to visit farms than we are able to make visits, but when we can go, we always are thrilled to see what local farms are doing. We have arrangements with several farmers markets in town as well as with Colorado Food Rescue to receive unsold produce after the markets close and from larger grocers who would otherwise be wasting good, fresh, organically grown food.
How do you communicate your commitment to sustainability to your customers and the community?
We have strong community partnerships with other organizations that are working in the Local Food Movement and for sustainability, such as Colorado College, UCCS, Pikes Peak Urban Gardens, Colorado Springs Food Rescue, etc. Our commitment to keeping it local and sustainable is obvious on our menu (which changes daily). We keep literature about our involvement in sustainability in the café and often have volunteers who hand out our literature to passers-by. We are also part of the Green Cities Coalitions and we are regular participants in the yearly Local Foods Week in the Springs. If you are in the Café' for more than ten minutes, it is likely you will hear the words "sustainable" or "local."
Describe your local food community in four words.
Passionate, engaged, healthy, growing.
Are there other sustainable aspects to your establishment (water/energy conservation efforts, composting, etc.)?
We are involved in composting at Seeds. We also recycle and would like to eventually be a zero waste facility. We use Kangen water for all of our water needs.
How did you get your start in the business? Did you start with a sustainable focus, or did that come along later?
Chef Lyn Harwell got his start in the food business by growing up on a farm and later helping to run his father's restaurant and catering facility. He says he didn't necessarily start with the contemporary concept of a "sustainable focus." Says Chef Lyn, "We were just growing and sharing food. It's what we did in our little Ohio town of farmers." Later on, after many years in the food and hospitality industry as well as a stint as programs director at Springs Rescue Mission, Harwell says he was overwhelmed with the amount of need he witnessed and the number of those who are food insecure [hungry]. On the other side of the coin, he was overwhelmed with the amount of food that was wasted in the hospitality industry. Those two thoughts eventually percolated together and Seeds was born.
Why is sustainability important to you? What part of sustainability is most important to you in running your business?
We may need to become much more reliant on local provisions sooner than any of us might imagine. Right now, if the City of Colorado Springs were to be cut off from food supply overnight for some reason, we would only have enough food to last for three days. In the operation of Seeds, sustainability is important for many reasons, but mostly importantly because it's the wise way to have a consistent food source.
Do you change your menu with the seasons? What's the best and hardest part about your dedication to local, seasonal ingredients?
Our menu changes daily, not just with the seasons, but depending upon what fresh produce is available to us and what is donated. Of course, our menu changes with the seasons. Our hope is that eventually enough people will be responsive to the idea of growing locally and be open to learning different growing environment techniques. Hopefully, then, many types of produce which are now considered unavailable at certain times of the year in Colorado will be obtainable. Which leads to the answer to your second question: the best part about your dedication to local, seasonal ingredients is when they're available. The hardest part is when they are not.
Do you have a favorite dish at your restaurant right now?
Chef says he loves Seeds' variety of soups and that the signature Caesar Kale Salad is just "killer"!
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This post was originally published in October 2014.
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