The Plastic Age Is Over

Sustainability? We Scored 283 Out of 100. You're Welcome.

There are three major ways goodsugar is doing its part to give future generations a fighting chance of not living in a giant swamp of plastic garbage, which, unfortunately, is already a reality in parts of the world.

And sustainability means a hell of a lot more than getting rid of plastic bottles.

1. We're 100% plant-based. Yay! 🌱 No animals are slaughtered to supply our restaurant. The chicken that might otherwise have its head chopped off gets to live another day. Or maybe somebody else will eat it. We understand that people have been eating animals for thousands of years. No judgment. We're just not participating in that part of the food system. For this, we award ourselves 110 points out of 100.

2. We use organic produce. 🍎 This matters enormously. Organic agriculture restricts the use of many synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and that's important for more than just the chemicals that might end up in your body. It's about the soil, the microorganisms living in it, the surrounding ecosystems, and the role healthy soil plays in the carbon cycle. Organic farming isn't environmentally perfect, but it's a direction we're committed to supporting. Another 94 points.

3. We eliminated single-use plastic from our packaging. 🫙 Glass jars, metal lids, wooden utensils, paper bags, and alternatives to plastic straws. It's more expensive, heavier, and less convenient for us. We did it anyway. Give us another 79 points.

Let's calculate that. 283 points out of a possible 100. And you haven't even walked through the front door. That's how good we are at sustainability. We broke our own imaginary scoring system.

Now, I know there's some nerdy, hypercritical person reading this thinking, "Oh yeah? What about artificial intelligence? Don't you use that? Isn't that wasteful?"

Yes, we use computers. We've used Photoshop, Illustrator, word processors, spellcheck, and intelligent software for decades. Generative AI is different, and yes, it consumes resources. That's a legitimate concern. But if your response to a restaurant eliminating animal products and disposable plastic is to interrogate its software, perhaps you need to get outside and have a little fun.

I also drive a Tesla, for now. It's a nice car. It drives well, and some of the features are enjoyable. But I'm probably not getting another one. Some of the technology still feels goofy, my wife doesn't like driving it, there's nowhere convenient to charge it overnight in New York City, and I pay $1,200 a month for parking. Twelve hundred dollars to let a car sit still. Brilliant.

Anyway, back to the restaurant.

The World's First Positive Retail Loop. 🫙♻️💰

Our glass return program is ridiculously simple. Bring your clean glass jars back with their metal lids, and we'll add $0.50 for each jar to your goodsugar house account. Spend that money on more healthy food. That's it.

You buy healthy food. You enjoy it. You bring back the packaging. We give you money to spend on more healthy food. We reuse the jars, reduce garbage, and reward you for participating.

We call it the first positive retail loop in the world. Instead of rewarding you for consuming more and throwing more away, we're rewarding you for returning something valuable to the system.

And here's the beautiful part: we don't charge you extra for the glass jars in the first place. We absorb that cost because we believe doing the right thing shouldn't require the customer to be wealthy, inconvenienced, or particularly enthusiastic about saving the planet.

Despite these expensive packaging choices, our prices remain highly competitive.

Some other health food retailers charge obnoxious prices while wrapping everything in plastic. Plastic coming out of their asses. And then they want to lecture everybody about sustainability.

Please.

We're not perfect, and we're not claiming to be. But we're making real decisions that cost real money because we believe they're worth making.

So come in, enjoy the food, return your clean jars and lids, collect your 50 cents, give me a hug, be nice to Naomi, and if you see Peter working in the background, please tell him his hairline isn't receding.

He'll feel fantastic.

Sustainability, compassion, organic food, free money for returning glass, and a little emotional support for Peter. That's goodsugar. ❤️