As most of you know, tomorrow is Earth Day.  To coincide with this and to bring awareness to food-related carbon footprints, all Bon Appetit cafes will be transformed into “low carbon learning venues”.  Have you ever considered how much of a carbon footprint your every day lunch creates?  Now you can find out with Bon Appetit’s Carbon Diet Calculator.  For example, beef and cheese are high carbon foods as the cows they come from emit high levels of methane gas which, as everyone knows, wreaks havoc with the ozone layer and is 23 times more potent than our other favorite toxic run-off, carbon dioxide.

Leftbank Cafe Manager, Leah Wilmoth, said “I stand behind Bon Appetit’s mission to provide healthy sustainable food.  This was one of the main reasons I wanted to work for the company.”  On Earth Day, the Leftbank Cafe will not be serving any types of food that have a high carbon footprint.  Chef Adam Torres said “On a day to day basis we only serve locally sourced foods and tomorrow will be no exception.  We will only have low carbon footprint foods such as Turkey, Tuna and vegetables on the menu.”  The Turkey served at the Leftbank Cafe is locally sourced from Cooper Farms in Stanfield, Oregon and the Tuna is caught off the Oregon coast and canned right here in Portland.

Waste from food packaging is also another high-carbon culprit.  At Bon Appetit all of the to-go boxes and cups are compostable, thereby reducing the carbon footprint further.  It’s up to everyone to consider these things when making their food choices - for the good of this lovely Earth.

Just a reminder that the Leftbank Cafe will be open this Thursday, 12/10 until 8pm.  We will have Happy Hour from 2-8pm with some wonderfully delicious, piping hot soups together with palate tingling local beers and regional wines.  Check out this week’s Happy Hour Menu.

Stop by and see us.  You’ll be happy you did.

I’ve been a brown bag girl for more than a decade.  Lucky enough to have a partner with mad skills in the kitchen, for years I’ve had gourmet leftovers every day at lunch.  And for years coworkers have jealously eyed my lunch while sitting across the table - peanut butter sandwiches in hand.

The lunch tables have turned.  more

Leftbank’s Project Manager Brian Keicher, and Site Superintendent Hans Arenz are swinging hammers.  Not that those guys don’t regularly do whatever it takes to get the job done, but it’s fun to have photo documentation.

The long-awaited, eagerly anticipated Leftbank Café is nearly complete!  Feels like I’ve been asked about it by nearly everybody who lives or works within a 2 mile radius of Leftbank in the last month.  With construction wrapping up this week, the café is right on schedule to move in as we close out the month of May, and they’ll be open for business on Monday, June 1st.  Our hungry neighborhood is about to have a friendly spot with Stumptown Coffee and brewed-in-the-building Upright Beer on tap.  The menu offerings include organic, locally sourced ingredients and regional wines, too.

I’m about to have something besides a cheese sandwich in a brown bag for lunch, and I couldn’t be happier about it.