What is Earth Day?
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22nd, dedicated to promoting environmental awareness and encouraging people around the world to take action to protect our planet. The idea for Earth Day was first proposed by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1969, following a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Nelson wanted to harness the energy of the anti-war movement to focus on environmental issues and raise public awareness about the impact of pollution and environmental degradation. The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970, and it drew an estimated 20 million participants across the United States. Since then, Earth Day has become a global event, with more than 1 billion people in over 190 countries taking part in activities and events to raise awareness about environmental issues and promote sustainability.
Why the Earth and Earth Day is important to eden?
The restaurant industry has a significant impact on the environment, with energy and water consumption, food waste, and carbon emissions being significant contributors to the industry’s environmental footprint. At eden, it’s our responsibility to react to this situation, do our part to reduce our impact, and set the tone for other businesses to follow.
Since we opened in 2016, our mission was to use fresh and seasonal ingredients, which aligned our efforts to source from farmer’s markets and local farms and we even began growing on-site. Our growing capabilities alone have come a long way from its humble beginnings as uncovered garden boxes in a parking lot to a full 20′ x 28′ greenhouse, temperature controlled for year-round harvesting.
Our greenhouse is maintained by our Chief Culinary Officer and Partner, Chef Devon Quinn, who has been noted as Green City Market’s most-visited chef for the past two years. He has been a regular for 8 years now, creating close relationships with the farmers and engaging all of his senses when picking the ingredients that are served each day at eden. Another source of seasonal produce comes from Global Garden Refugee Training Farm in Albany Park, 5 minutes from our restaurant. Global Garden provides land and training to refugee farmers, who grow food for themselves and their families, sell it at markets, or sell it to restaurants like eden.
Beyond Our Urban Garden
In addition to sourcing hyper-locally, our sustainable efforts include the elimination of plastic water bottles and plastic straws, replacing plastic to-go containers with compostable versions, and when we do use plastic we are using recyclable or compostable options. We replaced the paper hand towels with linen towels in our washrooms and we have a composting program. We collect food scraps from our kitchen when our team is preparing for the day and compostable material produced during brunch and dinner service. The material is picked up by WasteNot Compost, which is then turned into compost that can be used as fertilizer. We gather compostable material throughout our building and other brands and since we started this service in November of 2022, WasteNot has collected 18,530 lbs of compostable material (As of April 13, 2023).
There are some obvious items we can’t source locally, like the salmon we use as an add-on to our lunch salads or in our grilled salmon dinner entrée. The salmon we use is sourced from Loch Duart, a Scottish salmon farming company dedicated to producing high-quality salmon in a responsible and sustainable manner, and its commitment to sustainable fishing practices has earned it a reputation as one of the world’s leading producers of sustainably raised salmon.
To get involved with the community, our parent company, The Paramount Group, along with eden team members organized a clean-up along the Chicago River for Earth Day. Our team collected and tracked, using the Litterati app, over 500 pieces of garbage. Check out our reel on Instagram!
(Menu) Planning for the Future
We know we have more work to do and have plans to expand our efforts. One such effort is adding more plant-focused menu items. Having a close connection to fresh ingredients, vegetarian and vegan items have always been on our menu, but we are looking for opportunities to incorporate more of these options. Our spring menu just released our Wild Mushroom Tamale which is covered in roasted wild mushrooms and a guajillo chile salsa and huitlacoche purée. To make the dough, vegetable shortening is used to complete this vegan dish.
We are also working with our building owners to implement a green-energy program to further reduce our carbon footprint and the owners just rolled out a recycling program to collect aluminum, glass, plastic, paper, and other recyclable items.
Come to eden and see what we’re doing for yourself!