Project Green Fork in Memphis: Louisville should do this

[Robin Garr]

Very cool idea ...

http://projectgreenfork.org/about

A very cool idea, indeed. I would gladly support Louisville restauarnats doing likewise!

I'm all for anything that helps preserve the environment for our future generations; but my role as the devil's advocate thinks that it sounds great on paper, but single stream recycling and composting are an expensive proposition compared to the normal alternatives. Given the normal flow of most busy full service restaurants, most of the time the staff doesn't really have the time to think about sorting out what they are throwing away. Most of that task would fall upon the dishwasher or stewards and as anyone in the Bizz will tell you, a good dependable dish guy is more than worth their weight in gold, and are few and far between. Not to metion the space constraints of a lot of places I've worked, there usually isn't enough physical space for three separate cans for trash, recycled stuff and compost. In the kitchens, behind bars or even in the parking lots where the dumpsters are.
Also, a lot of these so called green chemical replacement products, are much more expensive and don't work nearly as well as their toxic counterparts. I will admit that they are getting a little better though. However, they haven't came remotely close to a "green" oven cleaner that works as well as the old fashioned stuff with good ole' sodium hydroxide and ethanolamine
With the rising cost of food and everything else, maybe Gabe from Taco Punk can weigh in on this as they recycle and compost. His QSR model seems to lend itself well to this idea. But I'm hard pressed to think how you can make it work successfully in a full service place with steady bar traffic without incurring a lot of extra labor, service and material costs, that would eventually have to be passed along to the customer.

[Robin Garr]

sounds great on paper.

Umm ... it seems to be working on the ground in Memphis.

Well from a PR stand point sure.
I'm not coming out against this by any means as I personally think it's a great idea in theory.
I like playing the devil's advocate role and I'm just bringing up some obvious operational hurdles to starting something like this locally before everyone starts jumping on the bandwagon.

For example, whose to say that some proprietor gets on board with this idea, and once passes it's six step process and gets "certified green" by this organization, gets put on the website and proudly displays a sticker on their door and promotes it on their menus.
Then they quickly decide that it's not really not worth all the extra hassle and expense and they go back to the old way of doing things while still benefiting from the PR as being perceived as having a "green" operation?

I'm 100% certain that stuff like this happens from time to time at restaurants.
For example, this can easily be done with items on menus being promoted as "locally sourced" from such and such a farm when they are actually coming off the Sysco truck.
Personally I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I could easily see something like this happening.

[Robin Garr]

Offhand, I'd say the first thing I would do if I wanted to get something like this going in Louisville would be to reach out to the folks in Memphis and find out how they dealt with questions like this. There's no point in re-inventing the wheel.

As a current resident of Memphis, who hails from Louisville, I am surprised to see Memphis "ahead" of Louisville in any aspect of the food scene. As the locals have informed me, Memphis gets everything AFTER the rest of the country. For instance, they've just recently discovered the cupcake craze (ick!) and there is no local ice cream crafter...seriously. Ive been to several Green Fork Restaurants since i moved here 3 months ago. They run the gammet from small lunch places to fine dining, and none of them appear to be hurting. Memphis is a pretty poor city and I consider their food scene to be inferior, in size and variety, to Louisville's food scene. So, I have to agree with Robin...if Memphis can do it, Louisville can make it happen.