The greenest kitchen in the world, part 2
So, there's a new twist in the discussions about the cafe kitchen, and it's all philosophical.

The question is, can you even run a cafe kitchen and call it "green"? There's a strong argument that actually, the only sustainable way to run this cafe would be to not run it at all.

It's an interesting question, actually. Saying "you can't do it" is like a challenge to me -grin-, it's a bit like a cop out. But the idea behind it is simple: when people go to a cafe, they want instant service, free choice and fast results. To provide those requires a lot of resources and energy, and results in a lot of waste - especially as you can only speculate on what customers you'll get each day. Normally, the costs for all the extras are just factored into the business. But if what we want to do is remove those extras completely instead of just passing the cost onto the customer, it becomes a much bigger problem. And it becomes a problem that needs social solutions as well as technological, because you will have to change some of your customers' expectations. Looking around the world, there's a few possible ways to do it already in action, and there's a few more I can think of.

One green restaurant in Northern Europe has a set menu, changing daily. I remember when I was quite small that some restaurants would advertise themselves as "a la carte" because that was a special thing. Now we take it for granted and assume that every restaurant will let us choose our own dishes, and the pre-decided banquet is the exception to the rule (most commonly seen now as a special feature of Chinese restaurants). But if we reversed that, and said "you can have a choice of set menus", it would cut down the waste factor. There'd be a lot less things you'd have to have on hand "just in case" someone wanted them. The menu changing daily also avoids boredom, which is an issue with our current neophilic generations controlling most of the disposable spending on eating out.

Another possibility is to only accept bookings up to the day before, and none on the spot. The good side of this is that the kitchen staff know how many people will arrive and can plan shifts and resources appropriately. The downside is that it's probably not a super successful business model, as most decisions to eat out are made within half an hour of the meal in question :-). Where it *does* work as a successful business model is if your restaurant is so fantastic that it's the kind of place you have to book months in advance to get a table. A special occasion place. Unfortunately, a little hippie cafe in the back streets of East Brunswick isn't likely to command that kind of customer response. Especially not in Melbourne, where you could eat out every night of the year for three years and never go to the same place twice. We have a lot of eateries.

A variation on both these possibilities is to not be a cafe at all, but a function centre. That's a business model that *does* have a known number of customers each night, and a pre-set menu. Best of both. It's a business model that's known to work, with its own rules and sets of customer expectations. And, as a green function centre, we could command quite a niche for ourselves, so we'd have the desirability factor there as well. At the moment, that's the way I think the group is pushing. Don't be a cafe, be a function centre. Solves all the problems.

It makes sense, but I can't help but wonder what other possibilities we haven't thought of. As always, thoughts and comments very welcome.