Everyone likes to go out to eat once in awhile – not having to worry about prepping, cooking, and cleaning up after a meal, whether you’ve had a long day at work or you just want to get out of the house. Mr. HoneyB and I indulge sometimes, and we even have some friends who almost never cook for themselves. Convenience can come with a cost, and with restaurants, you lose control over the way the kitchen operates. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if your favorite restaurant was trying to run as eco-friendly as possible?
Lucky for you, I ran across a really neat website recently. Dine Green! is an association that restaurants can join if they can meet certain standards, with regard to sustainability, water conservation, energy use, waste and recycling habits, and reduction of pollution. Once a restaurant achieves these standards, it earns a listing on this site and the official use of the seal (pictured below), so that you (the potential diner) can search for a recognized “green” restaurant in your area.
Dine Green!
I ran a search for my town, and found one restaurant on the list. I’m not normally a huge Japanese food fan, but my husband (and several of our friends) are; so the next time we plan to go out, I think Rolls’n Bowls is going to be on my list of suggestions!
What’s really neat is that this organization offers support to restaurant owners who want to go green, offering a variety of assessment, consulting, certification, and marketing services to assist restaurateurs through the process. If you want to give a local restaurant in your area the heads up that you’d appreciate them being certified, Dine Green! has a suggestion card you can download and print to leave with your tip, and encourages diners to send letters to their favorite restaurants letting them know you’d be interested in seeing them certified as a green restaurant.
If you’re a bit of a geek (like I am!), you should be sure you don’t miss their education section. Dine Green! has done an excellent job of highlighting the issues they hope to combat by getting more restaurants to go green, and the information they share on their website is an excellent resource if you wanted to know more about environmental hazards to which restaurants contribute (and hopefully will soon minimize!).
Would you be more likely to patronize a restaurant if they had this certification? Would you be really gutsy and suggest that your favorite restaurant look into this?
We’re good friends with RnB’s GM and he is ALL about the green stuff. And not in the “its super trendy way,” he really believes in it. And that rocks to me.
I love the idea that restaurants are really looking at their impact! Awesome
I hope it’s infectious – I’m planning on writing letters to a few of my favorites in town!