Spirit of Aloha | Features | July/August 2007

Reportage
Food with Joyful Energy
By: Joan Conrow

Photography by Sue Boynton

Hawai‘i’s first nationally certified “green” restaurant is a personal work in progress

IIt’s not easy starting a vegan restaurant—think extreme vegetarian, as in nothing derived from animals—in a place where kālua pig, raw fish and teriyaki beef are cherished menu mainstays. But Kaua‘i is where res­taurateur Gabriel Zingaro and chef Mark Reinfeld crossed paths, so that’s where the Blos­soming Lotus, and its trademark vegan fusion cuisine, was born.

“It was really just a magical process,” said Zingaro of the serendipitous—perhaps even fated—events that led to the restaurant’s creation. “I wouldn’t say there are any coincidences.”

The saga began in late 2001, when Zingaro and his future wife moved to Kaua‘i from Northern California, planning to open a vegan bakery. Instead, they took over management of a downtown Kapa‘a Internet café and began making healthy pizza, baked goods and sandwiches, while looking to expand the menu.

Reinfeld, meanwhile, arrived on Kaua‘i seeking a break from his corporate chef consulting duties in Colorado. He headed first for the Kalalau wilderness, where he was inspired to take a vow of silence, then returned to civilization and began circulating fliers advertising his services. One of them fell into Zingaro’s hands, and the two men exchanged e-mails be­­fore meeting at the café. They quickly hit it off, and Reinfeld—still silent—sign­ed a 10-week contract to train chefs and develop recipes.

“But by the third week, we were so aligned on ethics, energy and values, we decided to work together on something longer term,” Zingaro said. They formed a partnership and the near immediate fruit of their union was the Blossoming Lotus, which took over the café locale and began serving a full vegan menu on July 8, 2002.

Three days later, a tourist stopped in and ordered a humongous amount of food as takeout for his wife’s birthday party. “We forgot the entire bag of des­serts,” recalls Zingaro, who personally delivered the missing pastries to the Prince­ville Resort, along with a handwritten note of apology that offered a compensatory dinner for two.

The man, it turned out, was Bo Rinal­di, a natural foods advocate and former chef and investor, who just happened to be on the is­land because his wife, Star, had dreamt a few weeks earlier of celebrating her birthday there. When the couple returned to the Lotus for their free meal, Rinaldi was so impressed by the quality of the food and the staff’s work ethic that he immediately offered financial help.

“And voilà, here we are, four years later, with a full-service restaurant, a juice bar and bakery, two cookbooks and a Portland restaurant,” Zingaro says breezily.

It wasn’t quite as smooth and easy as that.

“Running a business is almost like raising a child,” says Zingaro, a 30-year-old father of two and the Lotus’ general manager. “It has to go through its natural development process.”

At the Lotus, that process is complicated by a mission that extends beyond pleasing people’s palates to modeling the practices of a socially conscious business. Its 17 owners have redefined profit to mean worker health and satisfaction, environmental sensitivity and corporate responsibility, as well as money.

“We take the approach that you are profiting only if everybody profits,” Zingaro said. “And that includes the bot­tom line. The bottom line is real. Al­though we want to approach everything with compassion, when it comes time to pay a bill, there’s no check of compassion I can write anybody. It’s really just blending these two elements.”

Through a process of trial and error, extensive research and lengthy group discussions, the Lotus team has figured out a winning mix and refined it into a system for running a profitable, socially conscious business that it wants to share with others.

“Hawai‘i is arguably one of the most difficult places in the U.S. to prove this model, and I like to think we’ve done it,” Zingaro says.

The model, perhaps even more than the menu, is what the Lotus is all about. “It’s just so rewarding to see, in these troubled times, there’s a little haven of positive energy directed toward sustainability and restoration,” Reinfeld says. “When other people are blowing themselves up, that’s our little snapshot, that’s what we’re offering.”

The picture includes organic food that is locally produced to the greatest ex­tent possible, and biodegradable take­out pack­aging. Both practices cost more in terms of dollars, but take a lighter toll on the Earth. Other ecofriendly measures, such as reducing electric and water use, save money and have helped the Blos­som­ing Lotus gain national certification as Hawai‘i’s first “green” restaurant.

Employee relations are similarly thought­ful. The staff is attuned to the vagaries of the human energy cycle and trained in nonviolent communication to keep interactions civil and clear. Work­ers, who are not required to be vegans, are offered incentive programs, including the chance to buy into the company, and healthcare benefits that cover treatments with alternative practitioners.

“We like to think the energy in the kitchen directly impacts the overall quality and taste of the food,” he says. “We want joyful energy going into our food—and that starts with the people in there.”

In the kitchen, signs imparting philosophical messages and encouragement are posted on the cooler doors. “Breathe,” reminds one. “Be the change you want to see in the world,” urges another.

Such sentiments aren’t mere rhetoric at the Lotus, where the owners—including two Kaua‘i farmers, an attorney and nine workers who contribute a combination of sweat, equity and cash—share the same core values.

"It’s wonderful because it’s an ideal; but in practice, it’s a little more difficult carrying out strategies, and executing to resolution is key,” Zingaro says. “It’s been a tremendous personal-growth pro­cess. It’s been a work in progress.” The operation is also something of a family affair: Zingaro’s brother manages the juice bar, his sister and brother-in-law are silent partners, and he and Rein­feld are married to sisters, who also work in the business.

“It can be difficult,” he says of all the togetherness, “but we deeply care about each other and share the lifestyle. We haven’t ever had to question the philosophy, ethics or values. That’s common ground.”

By practicing what they preach, managers and worker-owners are able to keep morale high and attract compatible employees “who don’t just see it as a job, but more of a life­style we want to embody,” Zingaro explains. “And if the work force embodies that, they can educate our customers.”

Education—about vegan diets, health and wellness, nutrition, corporate re­spon­sibility and compassionate management practices—is a big part of the Lotus mission, and both Reinfeld and Zingaro actively spread the word. Reinfeld, who maintained his vow of silence through the first 18 months of his partnership with Zingaro, now spends much of his time giving talks and vegan cooking demonstrations. He’s also written two cookbooks, the multiaward-winning Vegan World Fusion Cui­sine, and the e-book 7-Minute Chef, that aim to demystify vegan fare for home chefs.

Most of the day-to-day cooking at the restaurant is left to others—often recent culinary institute graduates who want to expand their repertoire to include a cuisine not taught in school. They’re al­lowed to indulge their creativity in daily specials, but otherwise follow Reinfeld’s recipes and his system for preparing them.

That process, like Zingaro’s management system, was de­signed to be shared with others and replicated, making it pos­sible to operate additional Lotus out­lets, or get even more into fast food, without either Zingaro or Reinfeld physically be­ing there to run the show. Already, a burger chain in the Pacific Northwest is looking to add some Lotus food to its menu, a move that could put Reinfeld closer to his dream of a Blos­soming Lotus on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Zingaro wants to see Lotus ex­pand into airports, but that’s not his only aspiration. He’s also eager to teach the Lotus model to all types of companies, from retail outlets to processing plants. Given all the interest in wellness and sustainability, it’s an ideal time to ad­vance conscious business practices and healthful eating, he said.

“We have a lot of big plans, and the world is ripe for them.”

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