The healthy alternative
By Jon Gubman, Outpost staff
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Where can I get some food around here? |
The Blue Heron is without a doubt one of Reno's more health-conscious eateries. The Heron serves vegetarian and vegan (a stricter form of vegetarianism that does not use dairy or egg derivatives) food made entirely from sustainable agriculture. Most of the ingredients the Heron uses are grains and organically grown fruits and vegetables.
Steve Flack, owner of the Blue Heron, says the restaurant's focus is to give the community a place where to get high-quality food prepared health consciously. On one recent afternoon, as Flack was kneading fresh pumpernickel bread and preparing an organic butternut squash soup, he told the history of the Blue Heron.
In 1974, Flack lived on an ashram in Washoe County with 10 other Buddhists. They were practicing Kundalini Yoga at the YWCA in Reno when they got the idea to start a juice company, the Earth and Joy on Valley Road and Forth Street, now home to the Rumpus Room. A more serene time for that neighborhood, the Earth and Joy served fresh orange and carrot juices.
Seven months after it opened, a regular customer came in and asked for a sandwich. So they made him a sandwich. Later, the same customer came in and wanted a bowl of soup. So they made him a bowl of soup.
Shortly afterward, the Earth and Joy changed to the Golden Temple Conscious Cookery. The Golden Temple served food as well as juices and got popular among locals. A few years later, it moved to 902 S. Virginia St..
Flack, an employee at the time, also was helping out with a Davis, Calif., farm that was owned by the same people who owned the Golden Temple Cookery. In 1984 the Golden Temple changed its name to The Blue Heron and moved to its current location, 1091 S. Virginia St. The owner decided he'd rather live on the farm and sold the restaurant to Flack.
Flack diversified the menu by offering daily specials, more breads and organic wines. And he hasn't stopped. His cookies made with organic persimmons won the Reno Gazette-Journal's cookie award, and his spinach pie was recently featured in an national vegetarian cookbook, the Natural Menu Cookbook. He makes weekly trips to the Marin and Berkeley Farmers Markets, where he gets many of the organic ingredients he features in his cooking.
Flack sees his restaurant and this style of cooking not as a small niche that's caught on locally but part of a global trend.
"People are starting to think and eat healthier," Flack says. "And that means more grains and organically grown fruits and vegetables. We're here to provide that for our customers. It's a funny thing, we've always had a good amount of regulars. But now we're starting to get a lot of response from the Internet, people in Boston and New York."
Customer Brian Sutherland agrees: "It's nice to have a healthy alternative here in Reno. The food's tasty, and you can feel good knowing that what you're eating is good for you too. Doesn't hurt that the prices are pretty cheap also."
copyright 11/15/97 Nevada Outpost
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