How The Switch Became America's First Green Restuarant Certified Food Hall
Nestled in the lively and revitalized Blackstone District of Omaha, Nebraska is a food hall with 7 wonderful local concepts that made an exceptional commitment to sustainability. The result is that The Switch Beer & Food Hall achieved 3 Star Certified Green Restaurant® status. That makes them only the 2nd food establishment in Nebraska to receive a certification (shout-out to our other composting partner, The Grey Plume) and the …
first food hall in America to become certified!
The Switched achieved 233.08 GreenPoints™ only two months after opening June 22nd because the folks behind the project, GreenSlate Development, made all the important commitments to sustainability long before the doors ever opened.
Photo by Emma Moren
How They Got It: Energy, Design & Waste
Working with architects at Alley Poyner, GreenSlate chose eco-friendly design routes like 100% LED lamps, drywall with 95% pre-consumer waste, and solar heat blocking window film.
EcoLab hand soap, Energy Star fridges and fryers, and prioritizing non-meat dishes were also big sources of points.
Initially GRA issued The Switch 188 Green Points, resulting in 2 Stars. But once we jumped on a call with GRA’s Restaurant Sustainability Consultant to explain the disposable and solid waste practices we oversee, The Switch was bumped to 3-stars, making eco-history right here in Omaha.
Read GRA’s full report here and click on the accomplishment highlights below …
6 More Reasons Why You Should Love The Switch:
Here’s our favorite things our involvement helped them accomplish and why you should go eat there now …
When you dine-in at The Switch, 100% of what’s tossed will be composted at our Soil Dynamics Composting Farm thanks to all 7 of the tenants committing to purchasing only compostable single-use items — a first for an Omaha food establishment.
They’ve set a Zero Waste goal where 90% or more of expected waste output will be diverted from the landfill using our robust recycling and composting methods and reduce/reuse strategies.
Many Omaha restaurants now use certified compostable take-out packaging, but as of writing this, only The Switch educates take-out customers on how to responsibly dispose of those materials using our Compost Club program. FYI: compostable packing is contamination in a recycling stream & puts off noxious methane gas in a landfill.
We set-up a Compost Club drop-off location outside of The Switch creating an eco-commerce loop that encourages take-out customers to dispose of their materials outside of The Switch before getting more take-out.
They’re using the soil they helped to create on-site in planters.
Managers use our training tool to educate new hires about their sustainability program.
Fun Fact: The Switch is on schedule to compost 55,000 gallons of material in year 1. As the pandemic subsides, we think that’ll be closer to 81,000 gallons annually.
Action Items For You …
If you own or manage a space and want to do something similar, hit us up!
Go to The Switch or order online from any of their 7 amazing food concepts, including Infusion, Ansel’s, El Arepon, Piatto Di Pasta, The Bubbly Tart, M Square and Red Lantern.