Real Foods Market and Café, 764 Winslow Way East
Article by Jon Quitslund
(Contact: jon at SustinableBainbridge dot net)
This series begins, by design, with a source of food, which to me is not only the first of life’s necessities, but always means more than warmth and comfort in the pit of my stomach. I associate food with hospitality, friendship, conviviality. If you are committed to cooking as well as eating, food may be something you work at, but it’s work of the best sort, calling on all your senses, your memories and imagination.
The idea for this series took shape at a table in the Real Foods Café, early in the morning a few months ago. I had come to Winslow to drop off a car for some routine service; it was chilly, and I hadn’t had breakfast. Winslow Way was empty, especially at the end east of 305. The row of shops along the front of the Harbor Square buildings was dark except for Real Foods, where the door was already unlocked. It wasn’t yet 9 a. m., the usual opening time, but Josh Bortman, the main man behind the café counter and in the kitchen, took me in. In short order, he served me a delicious Belgian waffle and a fresh cup of coffee: perfect attitude adjusters!
I had been in Real Foods once before, for lunch with my wife, and I had met Josh and his business partner, Lari Seltzer, at a Sustainable First Monday event in the Commons, but we didn’t form much of an acquaintance. On my first visit to the café, what caught my eye as I waited for our lunch plates to be served up was a small bookcase stuffed with a surprising selection of cookbooks and other books about food.
On my early morning visit, alone in the café, alert and relaxed, I felt a strong desire to know something of the story of Real Foods, and of the people responsible for its business plan. A similar business had failed in that space; were they making a success of it? What experience did they bring to their enterprise, and what are their plans? How do the market and the café fit together in a single business? What risks and obstacles are they up against, developing a labor- and capital-intensive business in a part of Winslow that’s off the beaten track for most Island residents unless they are hurrying to or from work?
Being at a distance from the busiest part of Winslow hasn’t hurt Pegasus or the Harbour Pub, and I see Real Foods developing as a magnet for return customers. The high-ceilinged space that the business occupies presents some problems, but the retail and cafe parts of Real Foods have been set up to be both spacious and cozy. It’s a family-friendly place, and with fresh produce, packaged organic food, soups and other prepared goods to take home for supper, and a wide range of other products for a healthy lifestyle, the café’s good food and ambiance isn’t the only draw.
Real Foods Market and Café opened only fourteen months ago. Lari Seltzer and her husband, Andy, a web systems designer, came to Bainbridge Island from the Bay Area with their two daughters, 10 and 14 years old. Leaving California because of the high cost of housing and the prospect of unsafe neighborhoods and private schools, they found a house here that an architect had designed and made habitable, but left unfinished. Plans to put money and effort into finishing the house were put on hold when the opportunity to create Real Foods opened up. They jumped, and Josh Bortman, a chef they had known and worked with in Berkeley, joined them as a full-time business partner.
Before talking with her, I had heard that Lari Seltzer’s commitment to green, sustainable, community-oriented business practices was inspired by her father’s example. Beginning in the 1970s, he was one of the pioneer producers of organic and super-fresh salad greens and other vegetables, supplying Chez Panisse and other Bay Area restaurants that formed the leading edge of a trend that is now visible and viable nation-wide. To her family background in organic gardening, she has added degrees and experience in nutrition and health care. Lari and Josh have discovered that the local food sources and distribution networks that are highly evolved in California aren’t so well established in the Northwest; with a small business, they still have to deal with an incredible number of suppliers, both local and long-distance. (The dream of growing their own fresh produce for the market may be several years from realization.)
The Real Foods business plan appears not to be based on efficiency and predictability, but on plenty of intelligence, generous effort, and openness to opportunities. Customers have been responsive to what they are being offered in Real Foods, and both Lari and Josh spoke with me of their desire to develop their business out of relationships with customers who have their own ideas of what Real Foods could be as the business develops.
Does it need saying that what’s “real,” when you think about it, isn’t to be found in things, but in relationships? Food and the other things we consume come to us out of an elaborate network of relationships, some of which are healthy while others are decidedly unsavory. The story behind a product, or behind the ingredients of a meal, as Josh Bortman pointed out to me, can add greatly to your satisfaction with it, or it can make you shudder to think.