At Lavender Cafe in West Newton, you can enjoy standard café menu items like croissants but also Venezuelan specialties like arepas, rice bowls, tequeños (fried dough with cheese) and cachitos (sweet bread with savory fillings). There’s also an appetizing assortment of vegetarian choices and baked goods – all made in-house. The café owners are two pastry chefs, Naisbel Azarak and Haylee Kulig, who also own NaisLee Catering.
Their fabulous list of baked goods is an excellent reason to visit, but their effort to tread lightly on the planet is reason to support the cafe again and again. The following is an impressive list of the café’s sustainability features that help to reduce waste in our environment:
- All of the plates, utensils, and cups are compostable.
- Even with compostable materials, they are still careful about how much they use.
- Sustainable sources are used for the menu items.
- They actively recycle.
- Ingredients in dishes are scaled for the exact amount of food to avoid waste.
- Leftover food is donated to first responders or other workers.
Food scraps are contained in separate carts with tight-fitting lids, and these carts are usually picked up for composting more frequently than trash, keeping smells down and the waste bins cleaner. Composting their plates, utensils, and cups means less goes into the trash.
Lavender Café is located at 15 Spencer Street in West Newton (at the former location of L’Aroma Café) and is open Thursday and Friday from 8am-4pm, as well as Saturday and Sunday from 9am-3pm.
You can also stop by Lavender’s booth at the Farmers’ Market on Tuesdays at Cold Spring Park (1189 Beacon Street, Newton) until October 28 (1:30-6pm), and at the Farmers’ Market on Saturdays at the Newton North High School (352 Lowell Avenue, Newton) from August 3 to October 25 (9:30am-12:30pm).
Gustavo Gregg Rodriguez is a Newton North rising junior and Green Newton intern.
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