Just as we were leaving the house Friday night, Julie called looking for dinner buddies. She and Peter were headed for Cakes & Ale, but since we had eaten there a couple of days before, they graciously changed their plans and accompanied us to Watershed instead. 

I hadn't eaten at Watershed in awhile and Larry never had, though he's wanted to since meeting owner Emily Saliers on the Cayamo cruise. Now that we're so tight with the Indigo Girls, it only seems right that we should sometimes go to Emily's place for dinner. She'll probably come out to our place next.


I had another reason for going, too. As you may remember, I'm working my way through Jezebel's list of Atlanta's Top 100 restaurants with an eye toward their green practices and Watershed is number 38 on that list. Oh yeah, and I also like their food (everybody does or they wouldn't exactly be on the top 100 list now, would they?).

We ate and drank and told stories and toward the end of the meal, Dayle and Alessandra strolled in looking for us. We had almost made dinner plans with them earlier, but Dayle had eaten at Watershed a couple of days before so she wanted to eat at a restaurant across the street that uses Styrofoam (not to mention any names but T_ del S_ you know who you are). Since I try not to frequent the Styrofoam dispensers anymore, we had gone our separate ways.

But after dinner the two of them got to Watershed in time to participate when we popped the big question (what are your green practices?) to our server Phil. You can tell what a nice guy he is just by watching him in this video and he was so informative and open about what the restaurant was doing. At one point he even went back to the kitchen to ask questions of the sous chef just to make sure he had all of his facts right.
 
The place was a little loud, what with being crowded with people who enjoy savoring yummy food in an eco-conscious restaurant environment, so I'll give you a little run-down of Phil's report so you don't miss anything. He says that the restaurant has made a couple of attempts at composting. He wasn't sure what went wrong but it's not a dead issue. Whatever happened, it's Watershed's intent to try again.

Their to-go containers are a compostable paper-based blend. Their used oil gets picked up and turned into biofuel. They've made some changes in lighting to reduce the amount of energy they use and they buy locally when possible. And you know the other day when I said I didn't know of any Decatur restaurants besides Cakes & Ale and Twain's that paid for recycling their glass? Well, so does Watershed. You go (Indigo) girl!



I checked out the Indigo Girls' website so that I could put in a link for you here and was so pleased to find a tab entitled "Activism." Here's a quote from that page: "Nothing feels better than helping out your community and being involved in your own destiny." Cool, huh? And one of the activism categories on the page is "Honor the Earth" so it makes sense that Watershed, as Emily's creation (with a little help from chef Scott Peacock) would follow practices that reflect this ideal of acting honorably toward the earth.

BTW, our other cruise friends, Lisa and Dee, are responsible for the Indigo Girls website and it's awesome so check it out. Then go eat there to show them you appreciate what they do. Or just go eat there if you appreciate having a good meal - that's okay too.