Maury Rubin Is Making City Bakery and Birdbath Greener by the MinuteLast week we wondered why notoriously progressive Birdbath wasn’t on a list of restaurants certified by the Green Restaurant Association. Owner Maury Rubin, who also operates City Bakery, tells us he didn’t seek certification from the GRA partly because he feels their requirements don’t go far enough. And how far is he willing to go? By this summer, he says, he’ll institute a program which offers his employees incentives, via a “company-wide friendly competition” for saving energy in their private lives. He’s also launching a program that will give his customers price cuts if they sign up for wind energy. We asked him to share some wisdom he’s gleaned from trying to run the most environmentally sound (and still profitable!) food business in the country.
Mediavore
A Rescue Plan for Restaurant Workers; No Fatty Crab for the UWSThe Restaurant Responsibility Act, just introduced in City Council, would keep eateries from abusing the help by tying operating permits to labor laws. [Gotham Gazette]
Fatty Crab owner writes in to say that Eater has it all wrong about an Upper West Side location. [Eater]
It’s salmon season in Alaska’s Copper River, and some of the city’s top fish cooks are spawning original dishes to take advantage. [NYDN]
Neighborhood Watch
Danny Meyer Can’t Close a Deal in Central ParkBrooklyn Heights: Brutal attacks on plastic restaurant mascots has become an alarming trend. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Central Park: Danny Meyer’s having trouble closing the deal on Shake Shack No. 2. [Down by the Hipster]
Clinton Hill: Pan y Mas is already shuttered; no word if it giving away too much free coffee was the culprit. [Clinton Hill Blog] But Community Supported Agriculture has finally found a new home at Christ’s Church on Clinton Street. [Brooklyn Record]
East Village: Birdbath bakeries offer from 25 to 50 percent off your order if you ride a bike to get there. [Gridskipper]
Flatiron: Tabla hasn’t given up on New Orleans; every bill includes a line for an optional Katrina-relief donation. [Gotham Gal]
Greenwich Village: Otto hostess harangued a party of eighteen over the limit of its dining time throughout a two-hour, $2,000 dinner. [Eater]
Little Italy: A mobster institution may no longer be in the family, but it looks like all debauchery won’t cease; the owner of L.A.’s Forty Deuce, Ivan Kane, will introduce burlesque to the Little Charlie’s Clam Bar space. [Eater]
Red Hook: The land Brooklyn Brewery’s been scouting for a new operation is described as “toxic soup.” [Gowanus Lounge]
Blueprint
An Interactive Tour of the Country’s Greenest Food BusinessMaury Rubin has more on his mind than pretzel croissants. The chef-owner of bi-coastal branches of the City Bakery has become consumed of late with food miles, volatile organic compounds, and wax-lined coffee cups, those pernicious symbols of our disposable (but non-biodegradable) society. He has just opened the second outpost of Birdbath (code name: Sparrow), his pastry-shop side project that originated as a way to generate cash flow out of the front of his East Village commercial kitchen and has become, according to Rubin, “the greenest food business in the country.”
The Underground Gourmet
Enviro-Friendly Eateries Take It to the Next LevelBy now, it’s become commonplace for restaurants of a certain environmentally correct ilk to cite their purveyors on their menus, especially when said purveyors are boutique organic farmers or tiny artisanal producers. But two restaurants, Franny’s (Brooklyn’s Chez Panissean pizzeria), and Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack, might be the first establishments to name-check their energy suppliers. Franny’s credits the progressive ConEdison Solutions, while Shake Shack simply gives a shout-out to the wind, as in “The Shack’s electricity is now 100% powered by wind power!” In a similar vein, Maury Rubin’s East Village “green bakery,” Birdbath — in what might be an attempt to discourage anyone thinking of going on a cookie run in a stretch Hummer — has posted a sign advertising a 50 percent discount to customers arriving on a bicycle or skateboard. Pedestrians, presumably, pay full price. — Rob Patronite & Robin Raisfeld
Related: Danny Meyer on Shake Shack 2.0