I talked this morning with Rachel Libon, a Red and Black co-owner since 2006, about how the cafe has managed to survive the past ten years.
MERC: You've gone from serving meat to being an all vegan restaurant. Who drove the change—workers or customers?
RACHEL: I think it was a little bit of both. When the cafe first opened, the only meat item on the menu was a turkey sandwich. I think that was a pretty easy transition to drop the turkey sandwich. When we moved, we decided to go all vegan because a lot of our workers are vegan and we felt like a lot of our customers were as well. For a long time, we still served milk for coffee drinks but we actually couldn't meet our minimum dairy order and would have to throw out a lot of milk. People just weren't ordering it.
How are customers pushing you now? Are you trying to become more sustainable food wise even after becoming all vegan?
We're definitely always trying to find local, smaller vendors to support, especially vendors who sell organic food with as little packaging as possible. We now buy produce from Sauvie Island Farms, Red Truck Farm and Project Grow. We're also getting local kombucha, all of our beer is local, we've started getting all of our herbs from an herb farm in Eugene.
Four more quick questions below the cut.