Standing Stone Restaurant- Ashland, OR by Diane

August 6, 2007

We arrived in Ashland around 7:30pm, just in time to go to dinner at the Standing Stone Restaurant and Brewery, a sustainable restaurant in the heart of Ashland, Oregon. The place is doing as much as they can to be sustainable, including serving local vegetables and meat (including Full Circle Bison Ranch bison meat on pizzas), a heat regeneration system where the heat blown out from refrigeration units is used to heat water, take out containers from biodegradable materials like corn, and solar panels.

The restaurant is so sustainable that it won the Governor's Sustainability Award for Green Entrepreneurs. Alex, the owner, joined us for part of the meal to talk about all the things they're doing to become more sustainable.

Dinner consisted of a variety of woodburning pizzas, including tomato and basil with fresh mozzarella, Full Circle Bison pepperoni, grape artichoke heart pesto, and several others we can't remember because we ate them so fast! We also had local wine and beer, and salads made from local ingredients. They also brew their own beer for the restaurant.

We were joined by Wendy Siporen from THRIVE, a local group that works on sustainable economic development focusing on agriculture, Mary Ellen deLuca, manager of the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market, Karen Wagner, Project Manager for the Oregon Farmers Market Promotion Project, and several volunteers including lead volunteer Barb MeGee and Joanne, who were delightful company. And we can't forget our hostess, Kendra Kimbirauskas, who's co-President of Friends of Family Farmers (and our tour guide through Oregon).

Everyone worked so hard to put the competition and day at the market together that a meal might not be totally sufficient to repay them, but it was great food, great conversation and a memorable time.

And on a sidenote, we stayed at the Ashland Springs Hotel in Ashland - a gorgeous older hotel that is connected to the restaurant Larks - which tries to source as locally and sustainably as possible. (One of the chefs from Larks was a contestant in our contest the next day.)

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