One World Café, a new vegetarian and vegan-friendly dining facility, opened this semester to take the place of the Moosewood eatery that formerly operated out of Anabel Taylor Hall.
“If the food is good, we are hoping even non-vegetarians will eat it,” said Gail Finan ’69, director of dining services for the University.
The café will continue Cornell’s efforts for healthy vegetarian eating that began with the Moosewood venture three years ago.
Moosewood Restaurant, located on Seneca Street near the Commons in downtown Ithaca, is one of the most celebrated vegetarian eateries in the country. Renowned for their innovative dishes, the restaurant has long been a fixture of Ithaca dining scene. The original’s success has allowed Moosewood, Inc. to expand into frozen dinners, and an array of bestselling cookbooks. So, when the University approached Moosewood regarding opening up a separate venue on the Cornell campus, the agreement turned out to be mutually beneficial, according to Finan.
Finan noted that both sides came away with lessons learned from the deal, including how to reach certain college markets and the value of an on-campus vegetarian option. Additionally, University dining services had a chance to learn to work with vegetarian frozen food.
Initially, Moosewood did not have enough recipes that were easily translated to the mass production methods necessary for campus dining. So, dining services worked to develop new recipes with Moosewood that could be easily adapted to the campus locations. Finan notes that One World Cafe utilizes many of these recipes.
“Most of the recipes we tested and developed with Moosewood, we got to keep [for One World cafe],” Finan said. “I think it fills the need.”
Finan said that opening One World was a financially neutral decision, and was a fair response to the loss of a popular dining facility.
“This wasn’t a fully profitable place, but it wasn’t a loss,” Finan said of the Moosewood venue.
One World has a variety of vegetarian dishes, ranging from grilled cheese sandwiches to salads. Finan also noted that a number of dishes have yet to be rotated into the menu, and that “people who wanted to see different things are happy.”
Original Author: Brendan Doyle