A restaurant’s sustainability efforts have the power to not only improve the environment, but also attract more customers. In fact, 38 percent of consumers are more likely to choose a restaurant with locally sourced foods, and 30 percent would choose a restaurant with food grown in an environmentally friendly way, according to a recent industry report from the National Restaurant Association. But it doesn’t end with food. In fact, sustainability in a beverage program is a vital piece of the puzzle. The same report showed that restaurant goers value local wines and beers (48 percent of Millennials and 40 percent of Gen Zs).
Implementing more sustainability efforts at the bar can make a big impact on the environment and potentially save money and bring in new customers. Charles Marshall, owner and chef at The Marshal in New York City, has always curated a completely local wine list. “What we decided here very early was if we were going to open a farm-to-table restaurant, that was going to be represented in the beverage program,” Marshall says.
Not shipping wines from France, Chile, and other destinations around the world reduces the restaurant’s carbon footprint, and it’s also putting money back into the local economy. Marshall finds restaurant goers often discover a local winery on the menu, which inspires a trip to check it out and further helps the local economy. Many wines on the list are also sustainably produced and/or natural wines.
“One of the cool things about using local wineries is you get to know the winemakers,” he says. Just as many restaurants strive to know their farmers, the same benefits are true to knowing their brewers, winemakers, and distillers, he adds. “It’s just one step closer to production and knowing where your food and wine comes from.”
In addition to local wineries, Marshall says a restaurant can also opt for wineries that have a sustainability certificate. Some best practices to look for include protection and conservation of the water supply, little to no use of pesticides and or herbicides, sustainable electricity use, and maintaining a healthy soil platform that will allow continued future use of the land.
His advice to adding local wines is to find wines that fill a slot on the menu and customer demand—something similar to a Cabernet Sauvignon, for example. Offering wines by the glass opposed to only by the bottle allows customers to try local wines they’re not familiar with. It’s also important to educate staff on how to sell it. He notes it’s easy to get lost in the romance of buying local, but it’s important to keep price point in mind when selecting beverage products to maintain margins.
“Most of our customers really appreciate that we’re taking farm-to-table to the next level,” Marshall says. Besides wine, the spirits are all from New York distilleries and even the soda is made right in Brooklyn. If operators don’t have access to the wine selection that a New York restaurant does, he says start with beer, since it’s easier to find a great local brewery.
For Bethany Heinze, owner of Vern’s in Charleston, South Carolina, sourcing local ingredients is a priority. Heinze loves the concept that a wine is an agricultural product first and foremost, and believes the farming behind the fruit is really important. The wine menu highlights small producers who follow a low-intervention approach to farming and winemaking, emphasize sustainability, and produce organic and natural leaning wines.
“If you’re a restaurant that aims to be a certain voice in your marketplace, then the beverage program should follow suit,” Heinze says.
The farm-to-table movement is still transitioning into the beverage world, Heinze says, and there’s still a long way to go as many people still tend to rely on things they know and producers they recognize. Having these types of wines can be a challenge but fun, she says. Heinze advises to seek out wine distributors who have a focus on organic or natural wines.
A priority is informing guests that the wine list is intentional with a goal to support small producers who share the restaurant’s same ethos in sustainability. To make the wine list easier to navigate, there are sub-sections of wines such as white wines under light, clean, and crisp or silky, weighted, and refined. Employees participate in a weekly wine training to build vocabulary on describing what to expect in a wine.
Cocktails at Vern’s are often made with Vermouth, Sherry, and Fortified wines from those same small producers. Produce is cross-utilized in both the kitchen and the bar, such as in a seasonal herb syrup used in cocktails, currently basil, tarragon, and mint. When the kitchen is only using egg yolks in a recipe, the whites are used in cocktails. Soda and juice are made in-house to limit waste, and beer selection focuses on local.
Meanwhile, at Farow in Niwot, Colorado, 90 percent of ingredients are sourced within 10 miles from farmers that are doing a lot of organic and regenerative farming. The creative beverage team is utilizing these kitchen scraps for cocktails instead of simply going into the trash. “The biggest part of it is not letting anything go to waste,” says co-owner Lisa Balcom.
Peels of citrus and other fruit scraps are macerated with sugar and utilized in drinks, tops of celery are used to make a tincture to add to cocktails, and bitters are made from waste, such as apple peels and pumpkin scraps. The bar utilized pumpkin peels for a tepache, a fermented drink typically made with pineapple peels, and spent coffee grounds are turned into coffee bitters. Leftover fats from meat, such as chicken and lamb, are used in various fat-washed cocktails, and there’s even a cocktail that’s garnished with scrap crispy chicken skins. In addition to potential waste, an on-site garden grows lilac for a lilac-infused vodka, chamomile and mint for simple syrups, and lavender for bitters.
For Farow’s wine selection, the focus is on producers that are biodynamic and organic. With offering lesser-known wines, it means investing more effort into educating guests on the list, Balcom points out. Overall, she has found people are curious and open to exploring and enjoy these wines.
“It would be counterproductive to have such a focus on sustainability and clean food and not to continue that on our beverage program,” Balcom says.
Having these sustainability efforts in the beverage program just continues to highlight more of what the goals are of the restaurant. “It does require learning and becoming more educated,” she adds. “It’s just a matter of the drive and desire.”
For a restaurant wanting to implement sustainability efforts, pick one thing and start there, she says. There are many options for a beverage program to get started—rethink single-use items such as straws and plastic skewers, opt for edible garnishes, recycle and compost whenever possible, evaluate energy and water usage, and if offering to-go cocktails, consider eco-friendly packaging.
