September 2024
Farewell Foodshed Cafe Salad Bar 🥗
&
NEW Fall/Winter Cafe Hours: 8am - 3pm Every Day
*New Cafe Hours Begin Sunday 9/29/2024*The co-op grocery store will remain open regular hours:
7:30am - 9:00pm every day
Hello GBCFC Member-Owners,
In April we opened the Foodshed Cafe featuring the salad bar that we purchased back in the fall of 2019. At the time that we purchased the salad bar, folks still liked to eat cold veggies and accouterments from a shared refrigerated unit... and single-use plastic reduction was a topic of daily conversation. That all changed when the COVID regulations began in the Spring of 2020. Grocery stores were not allowed to utilize any self-service merchandisers like salad bars or bulk bins.
In the months and years that followed, we watched the market data move in a new direction... both nationally and at our Reno co-op. From 2020 - 2023, our co-op had more than a 50% decrease in bulk sales, while other departments continued to grow at 20-40% each week due to pandemic shopping. Customer foot traffic and sales were up at GBCFC, but bulk sales were clearly declining. People were becoming more weary of cross-contamination and germs.
Fast forward to the re-opening of the Cafe. Both the data and our guts told us not to include the salad bar in the new design upstairs, but we couldn't get past the $20K and the physical feat of getting the salad bar merchandiser up our former stairs and through the mini side door!
On April 1st, 2024, we tried it and quickly learned that folks were more interested in the warm food and beverages at the Foodshed Cafe. Each week, we wasted well over $1,000 in food while only making about $400 in sales (don't worry; all food was either donated or composted). Given the significant amount of capital invested into the Foodshed Cafe reopening project, a high amount of food waste was not something that we could sustain financially.
We swiftly decided to release our high hopes for the salad bar and opted for more booths by windows, a few tabletops, and several comforting plants - we think it feels pretty darn good :)
We've spent the last few months dialing in our timing for counter-ordered meals, and our goal of 15 minutes MAX has been exceeded by the stellar Foodshed Cafe team!
We also launched online ordering from the Toast app so that you can order on your phone and receive a text when your food is ready to be picked up! 🏃♀️ 💨
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FOODSHED CAFE ONLINE
The Foodshed Cafe
Food Based On Our Foodshed
(And Our Watershed)
Our Cafe Menu is Unlike Any Other... Why We Think It's the BEST 🐄 🧈 👨🌾
Supporting local producers is our main goal and over the past 20 years, we have built a lot of relationships with farmers and ranchers in our area. This is reflected in our offerings at the Foodshed Café, with over 38 local producers supplying ingredients for the menu. You can feel good about knowing that when we say local, we mean local. Some highlights of these local ingredients include:
- Local grass fed & finished beef from Avanzino Farm (Reno, NV) and Snowball Ranch, (Eureka, NV - their alfalfa is certified organic!!!). Snowball Ranch uses a Wagyu bull to breed with red and black Angus cows. This beef is some of the best we've ever tasted, with incredible marbling due to the Wagyu genetics. Check out the image below of their gorgeous cows and pasture.
- Local sausage from Holley Family Farms (Dayton, NV - part of the pig's diet consists of spent brewery grain, which provides essential amino acids. It also eliminates a waste stream in the food system, win-win!)
- Local eggs from Kool Kids Ranch (Spanish Springs, NV)
- A large list of vegetables from a variety of local farms
- Local tea (Radish Hotel (Sparks, NV) and Davidson’s Tea (Sparks, NV), Specialty Coffee (No City - Reno, NV) and Honey (Al Bees - Washoe Valley, NV)
- A variety of local craft beers, a GF Organic Cider, and Local Folk Kombucha (Lake Tahoe, CA) all on draft!
As if this wasn’t enough reason to feel great about the food you’ll be getting at the Foodshed Café, there’s more! Our entire menu is seed-oil-free (with the exception of four items currently outsourced: the organic wheat tortillas, the GF brown rice tortillas, vegan butter, and oat milk)! That’s right, we don’t use any seed oils in the preparation of our food. Instead, we choose to use the following oils/fats: coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, butter, ghee, or tallow.
Since No City Coffee closed during construction, we looked around for another place to satisfy our craving for a wholesome cup of joe. After calling around to several other coffee shops, we were surprised that we were unable to find another coffee shop that uses organic whole milk—something you can be guaranteed to find at the Foodshed Café (serving locally roasted No City coffee). In addition, our coffee shop also offers housemade soaked almond milk and housemade vanilla using organic maple syrup!
Each menu item can be easily customized, so you can be sure to get just what you are looking for. While we could go on and on about the distinct features of our menu – and we will later – we really just want you to stop by and try it! Thank you for your support as we work together to build our local food system.
Article written by our in-house nutritionist:
Michelle Nash
Nutrition Education Director
Certified NTP & MScN
The Great Basin Community Food Co-op
The cows and pasture at Snowball Ranch in Eureka, NV 💕
LOCAL PRODUCE - Tis The Season For Bounty!
At the co-op, we believe in knowing where your food comes from! With global trends pushing everyone towards a centralized food system with little to no transparency, we believe that it's more important than ever to KNOW YOUR FARMERS & RANCHERS!
Check out this photo dump of few of the local goods that came to the co-op this harvest season 😍😍😍
New & Delicious 😋
GF Pumpkin Cookies are back!
Careful, these are addictive... and you would have no clue that they are gluten-free if we didn't tell you 😉. Last year we roasted and pureed over 10,000 lbs of local pumpkins from Berri Baserri (Bordertown, NV), Avanzino Farms (Reno, NV) and Sterling Farms (Smith Valley, NV) so that we could enjoy a variety of local pumpkin treats from a crop that grows SO WELL in Nevada! Lots more pumpkin inspired goodies on their way 🤤 🎃
Housemade Caprese with Our New Focaccia Bread!
Our homemade caprese Sandwich is made on our NEW Homemade Focaccia with LOCAL basil (Sterling Farms—Smith Valley, NV) and LOCAL tomatoes (Holley Family Farms—Dayton, NV), with Grass-fed and finished Buffalo fresh mozzarella. P.S. Insider tip: These sandwiches are huge and messy, but every single bite is worth it!
Soup On Pause 'Til October!
We've paused our Housemade soup schedule during the summer heat. Hot, Housemade soup will return in the Foodshed Cafe this fall with old favorites and new offerings. We will still offer frozen soup, while supplies last! 🍲🥣🍜
Anyone can shop, everyone can join!
Open everyday from 7:30am – 9pm
Great Basin Community Food Co-op
240 Court St Reno, NV 89501
775.324.6133
info@greatbasinfood.coop
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