About Us
Chef Joe Palombo of Mirabella Café in Cherry Hill, New Jersey has recently formed the first South Jersey Green Restaurant Group. It is the first of its kind in South Jersey. Due to increasing interest in sustainability in running our businesses more efficiently, Chef Joe has created a website to unite the restaurant community with similar mindsets and interests in the efforts to create a more sustainable restaurant industry in South Jersey.
His passion for embracing the going green initiative came approximately 2 1/2 years ago. It stemmed from a local Philadelphia restaurant owner named Judy Wicks from the White Dog Café. The owner has been a pioneer in this region and internationally for restaurant sustainability. "I have to admit that I was inspired by Judy Wicks of The White Dog Café in Philly. She has been instituting sustainable practices in her restaurant for over 25 years."
After watching a video about the "Pacific Toilet," otherwise known as the "Garbage Patch," off the coast of Mexico and California in the Pacific Ocean, Joe was dumbfounded by the atrocities committed by mankind against our environment. It hit him then, that as a restaurant owner and citizen of this planet; he had an obligation to make his restaurant more environmentally friendly, hence the development of the green catering initiative, finally resulting in the creation of South Jersey Green Restaurants.
Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in public support towards businesses that are sustainable or in the process of achieving sustainability. As restaurateurs, we can work together to bring customers into our establishments while striving to create an environmentally sustainable operation. "This isn't something that can be done overnight and not all businesses will find it as easy to transform as others.. We need to be thoughtful & respectful of some of our neighbor restaurants' challenges and help them to do the best that they can. We don't want to exclude anyone."
The group's efforts & events will center around teaching restaurants & restaurant diners about recycling, composting waste, sourcing local produce & seafood, and more importantly, sustainable seafood.
We are constantly updating our initiatives as we learn more about the various ways that our restaurants and customers can achieve environmental sustainability.
In every room of our restaurants there are sustainability opportunities.
