Blog from the kitchen

Thoughts and words from the chefs upstairs in the kitchen at The Bookshelf.

July 21, 2013

Welcome to the Greenroom


The purpose of this blog isn't just to brag about our food, promote it shamelessly, and get your money. What we want is for you to enjoy some awesome food and feel welcome in our space, and if you think that's worth paying for, then we must be doing something right. We will on occasion feature some crass self-promotion, but that's just because we're so excited about the food and we want you to feel that too. A lot of big things are on the horizon for us at The Bookshelf, and if you want a front-row seat with a view, then our blogs will be the place.

Before I began working at The Bookshelf Greenroom I had no idea about what kind of food they offered. I hadn't heard a lot about it from friends or seen much advertising about it. I went a few times to the eBar for various shows and visited the Cinema fairly regularly. More than once I even shopped for books in the store downstairs. All this in one building, but I was totally unaware of the quality of the restaurant hiding upstairs. You might find yourself in the same situation I was, or perhaps you do like the food but want to know even more about it. This blog will be your source for that information. Joining the other facets of the Bookshelf in online sharing, we hope to give customers both new and regular a behind-the-scenes look at what makes our food great.

The original Bookshelf Café was located at street level when it initially opened in 1980. It was the first restaurant-bookstore combination in the country. As the business grew and the adjoining buildings were assimilated, the café moved, expanded, and evolved. Five incarnations (at least) later and you can now find the Bookshelf Café upstairs—it's called the Greenroom. This space has seen a lot of revisions and styles come through, and with each incarnation it evolves into something better.

Today you'll find our three chefs working hard to bring you our signature dishes: gourmet comfort foods and house-made classics. We source our meats and produce locally, from farms that care. Pasture-raised beef and pork go into the juicy burgers, and you can taste the difference they make. The chicken we buy is raised traditionally: it's free run, grain fed, and hormone free. Actually. You can visit the farm and see the chickens running around being chickens. Some of them are as big as my cat. It's easily the best chicken I've ever tasted, and that's before we marinade and batter it. Even our openers have a special touch, like our Caesar salad, which has house-made dressing and croutons and double-smoked bacon—bacon that started with Berkshire pigs from Perth, raised using responsible husbandry methods. The quality of the food is wonderful, and I assure you there will be future posts with mouth-watering details.

And we're still growing. Menu revisions and finishing touches to recipes are in constant motion here. So follow this blog until you're convinced you need to see us and get something to eat.


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