We’re almost completing one year in our new cafe space on East Main, downtown Buena Vista. It’s been a whirlwind of developing processes, smoothing out efficiencies, and understanding work flow and people flow, all the while doing everything we can to provide an unparalleled experience to our customers. Our green coffee demand has increased by two thirds with an additional wholesale enterprise and our cafe and patio space has been well accepted, beyond our expectations. There’s been a lot to do.
With that said, one area we have been recently been able to focus on with a change of passionate staff and focusing our direction is our baked goods. There have been some subtle changes in our bakery over the past couple of weeks. Namely, we’ve found Organic sources for all of our flours, sugars, several spices, potatoes, buttermilk, better organic gluten-free flour, and organic Fair Trade chocolate for baking. We also now have cage-free vegetarian eggs. Abattoir regulations make it difficult to find local meat supplies, but following the footsteps of our neighbors the Eddyline brewpub, we have some leads. As they say, poco a poco.
Organic? One article I read this morning lays out a rather simplistic argument about buying organic or conventional produce, bringing the argument to your body or your pocketbook. It tends to cost more (except for our coffees, most of which are the same price as conventionals). Yet are the health benefits worth that extra cost to you? This article begins the debate at the line in the grocery store and briefly addresses residual pesticides. There is no mention of practices or effects in situ, with GMO, monocultures, et cetera. It’s rather disappointing thinking about the myopic study this article is based on, or at least the authors presentation of the study.
In any case, our informal study says that we are happy to be transitioning the food in our cafe.
