One year later

Incredibly, we have begun counting down to the first anniversary of b.good’s debut in North Carolina on Oct. 23, 2014. Last summer, though not yet open for business in Raleigh’s North Hills, we already had established relationships and partnerships in the community as part of an effort to introduce our brand to a new market.

b.good at North Hills.

We joined the Midtown Raleigh Alliance, and we made a commitment to a great organization, Activate Good, which exists to fuel the spirit of volunteerism across the Triangle.

Before we get to a busy October celebrating our one-year milestone, we first will focus on two opportunities in September to help make a difference in our community.

On Sept. 9 b.good will be among North Hills restaurants supporting the Midtown Raleigh Alliance’s “Get Moving Midtown” initiative. The event is called Dine Out. It presents a great opportunity for local residents to support Back Pack Buddies, which funds a healthy meals program for school kids who are at risk. When you visit b.good on the 9th, a portion of what you spend dining with us will be donated to Back Pack Buddies. Part of the mission of b.good is to promote “real food” as part of a long-term lifestyle commitment. It’s indisputable that children exposed to nutritious food are more likely to adopt healthy dietary habits as they mature and enter adulthood.

Two days after Dine Out, we’re excited to join our friends at Activate Good and contribute to their annual 9/11 Day of Service. We didn’t have a restaurant last year on 9/11 but we found a kitchen and improvised. Our team served salads and beverages inside a local women’s support center.

This year, we’ll be a Brooks Magnet Elementary School in Raleigh, participating in a Junior Achievement program for second-graders. Joined by our fellow North Hills merchant Vineyard Vines, we will be talking to the kids at Brooks about careers and the development of life skills.

Activate Good’s 9/11 Day of Service is a project that has tremendous impact on the community due to the incredible scope of volunteer opportunities available through out. Hundreds of Triangle residents will turn out on Sept. 11 to go to work. Jobs include building four new homes (three in Wake County and two in Durham) in cooperation with Habitat For Humanity; serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Raleigh Rescue Mission; landscaping to assist Raleigh Parks & Recreation; pitching in to perform a top-to-bottom cleaning of the Helen Wright Center for Women;  and building bed frames at the Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill.

Red Hat Amphitheater, 9/11/14.

Those are but a few examples of the torrent of activity planned for Activate Good volunteers on 9/11. The day culminates beginning at 6 p.m. at the downtown Red Hat Amphitheater, where around 700 volunteers will gather to host “service project stations” designed for family participation. Last year, b.good was assigned to a station where citizens gathered to write notes of encouragement to men and women on U.S. military tours of duty. It was an unforgettable experience to collect and read these notes of gratitude and support for American military personnel.

We’ll be back at the Red Hat venue again this year on the evening of 9/11. In addition to the service projects, attendees will hear from community leaders and enjoy live musical performances, food and beverages.

Check out volunteer projects still available on 9/11 by visiting Activate Good’s web site.

A coach and her game plan

Operating a business, especially a restaurant, guarantees encountering the unexpected almost every day. But it’s those daily encounters with the expected that makes our corner of the universe in the Midtown Park district of North Hills a great place to be.

We can count on two developments everyday beneath our bold, red awnings. One is the anticipation of delivering on our “real food” pledge. We do that by sourcing fresh, organic and local ingredients to the greatest extent possible, and by meticulously prepping these ingredients every morning. It feels like getting ready to raise the curtain on a stage production.

Our Harvest Kale Salad and grilled, grass-fed beef.

In the back kitchen, a friendly woman named Maria is marinating kale from Burch Farms (Faison, NC). Our grill master, Brandon, is double-grinding our grass-fed Harris-Robinette beef (Pinetops, NC). Out front, Brussels sprouts are roasting and fresh corn is on the grill.

The energy and aromas are fabulous.

Then, at 11, the doors open, and the other expected dynamic comes into play. Our b.good Family (it is inaccurate to merely describe these folks as “customers”) begins to arrive, and while we recognize so many now after being in business more than nine months, it’s always thrilling and enlightening to meet folks who are just discovering the real food revolution happening at the corner of Park and Market.

Released last fall.

One of our newest Family members is a certified health coach. Jeanine Finelli of Cary also is the author of “Love Yourself to Health“. She walked into b.good here in North Hills after visiting our neighbors across the intersection at Hyatt House, where she and a fellow team of health coaches are hosting a free seminar this Saturday, August 1.

Like so many of our Family members, Jeanine feels strongly that a daily diet centered on real, clean food is a key component of a life well lived. That’s the focus of the upcoming seminar, which will be led by a Los Angeles-based former model, Troy Casey, aka, The Certified Health Nut.

It’s being presented as a Healthy Happy Hour, 4-6 p.m., at Hyatt House. We think it’s a great time investment on a Saturday afternoon. Better yet, you’ll be a short walk from our front door, the gateway to fresh seasonal salads, our kale & grain sauteed veggie bowls, made-to-order fresh smoothies and grass-fed beef off the grill.

Our Family awaits you. 

Power surge

After its debut in 2014, the b.good “veggie bowl” became an overnight signature menu item. Like the b.good brand, the bowls are not easily categorized. It’s not a salad. It’s an authentic representation of “real food, fast” — quinoa or (recently introduced) super grains, kale, and sauteed veggies, balanced with flavor accents like avocado and house-made sauces, chipotle puree among them.

But the real food revolution never stands still. The envelope is being pushed again with the arrival this month, on July 15, of the Power Bowl, and an additional protein option, tofu.

The Power Bowl.

The Power Bowl has some things in common with its siblings, such as marinated kale, quinoa or super grains (short-grain brown rice, kamut wheat, hard wheat berries and millet) and a house-made dressing (a new tomato vinaigrette).

The deviations, however, are substantial. When creating this latest addition in his b.good kitchen up in Boston, Chef Tony Rosenfeld cast aside the medley of sauteed veggies in favor of an unlikely new medley. He decided to have some fun. The power behind the Power Bowl is a sesame carrot hash, Brussels sprouts, pepitas (pumpkin seeds), shiitake “crisps” and a locally sourced egg, prepared over-easy on the flattop.

Grilled tofu.

Add grilled all-natural chicken or our newly unveiled grilled tofu to this Mediterranean influenced bowl to make it an even more memorable entree.

Power up.

Father of excellence

It is indeed a happy coincidence that this is written on National Vanilla Milkshake Day (June 20), and on the eve of Father’s Day 2015. The convergence of these two observances brought one man immediately to mind.

Bob Nutter, 87, was born and raised in Maine. From the early 1800s, his family operated a dairy farm. Bob’s grandfather acquired the farm’s first cow with Holstein bloodlines. These Dutch cows are among the finest milk producers in the world.

Farmer Bob and friend.

Bob woke up one day when he was about 35 years old and found himself wondering if there was a better place to tend Holsteins. The year was 1963 and the winter, like most before it, had been long.

By July 1963, Bob orchestrated the migration of his Holstein calves to 475 acres in Hillsborough, NC, in Orange County. Maple View Farm was soon in operation, 1,000 miles away from those harsh winters.

By 1996, Maple View had evolved into a self-contained operation after Bob and the family made a courageous decision to process, pasteurize and bottle all of its milk on the farm. In 2001, Maple View Ice Cream made its debut with 12 flavors.

It was a timely collaboration between Bob and his late daughter, Muffin, that gave birth to Maple View Ice Cream, which is both a naturally delicious product and a destination. The ice cream store in Hillsborough attracts families from across the region.

“We were selling the cream (from skim milk production) for ice cream” to other ice cream makers, Bob told CountryFolks.com in an interview. “So we decided to keep the cream and make our own ice cream.”

Thus, Bob emerged as the modern day Father of North Carolina ice cream. A little know fact is that Maple View was the first dairy farm in the state to manufacture its own ice cream.

Under Bob’s leadership, the Nutter’s relentless determination to make a difference extends far beyond the cattle fields and production facilities. In 2009, the Maple View Agricultural Center opened its door to open the eyes of area young people to agriculture, conservation and science.

Bob’s commitment to fathering excellence has not gone unnoticed. In addition to all of his fans at the ice cream store, Bob and the family also have collected deserved recognition. Maple View was the 2011 North Carolina Grange Farm of the Year.

In 2014, Bob was an inductee of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Business Hall of Fame.

Maple View’s milk and natural ice cream go into every milkshake we serve. We’ve got nothing against Maine, but we’re sure glad Farmer Bob decided to give his Holsteins a change of scenery more than a half century ago!

THE CHEF BEHIND A BOLD IDEA

When customers call to ask for help zeroing in on our physical location in the new and expanding Midtown Park district of Raleigh’s North Hills, we name a few landmarks then add, “Look for the bold, red awnings; you can’t miss us.”

In fact, b.good is a brand built on unleashing boldness. It took bold vision to believe that the farm-to-fork trend could be adapted to fast-casual dining. Customers love the bold colors in our fresh produce display, and the enlarged photos on our walls of local farmers and other producers from whom we source menu ingredients.

But nowhere is this boldness perpetuated more than in the distinct flavor profiles of the real food we serve every day. Those flavors and the many unique ingredients that spawn them originate with b.good’s executive chef, Tony Rosenfeld.

Chef Tony is a published cookbook author who has contributed to numerous national culinary and lifestyle magazines, along with metropolitan daily newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The New York Times. Given that b.good’s most popular menu items include sauces with names like chipotle puree, or dressings like sherry vinaigrette, and that we grill grass-fed beef, marinated chicken breasts and sauteed vegetables, it’s not at all surprising that one of Tony’s cookbooks is entitled, Sear, Sauce & Serve: Mastering High-Heat, High-Flavor Cooking.

What ultimately differentiates b.good in the fast-casual dining category are three things: the freshness of our food, locally sourced to the greatest extent possible; Tony’s house made dressings and sauces (and proprietary pickles); and a menu influenced by seasonality. As for the latter, that means a menu that is always changing. Mainly, the changes are driven by produce going in and out of season, but, sometimes, the changes come about after Tony goes to work perfecting a new idea.

As a prime example, consider a seasonal sandwich option that came along a few years ago. Named in order to attract the attention it deserves, the Goomba combines the distinct leafy bitterness of arugula, wild mushrooms, smoked Gouda and a shot of Tony’s red pepper vinaigrette atop one of four grilled choices (beef, chicken, ground turkey or a veggie burger). There might be no greater threat to ketchup and mustard ever conceived.

To celebrate the annual arrival of spring, Tony created a Strawberry Goat Cheese Salad, combining baby spinach, locally sourced strawberries (in the Raleigh market, we use delicious strawberries from Vollmer Farm) and goat cheese. But what makes the salad memorable is Tony’s introduction of diced figs and candied walnuts as the perfect compliment to his house made balsamic vinaigrette.

Bold thinking also was behind two other menu items that will be launched this month. One is the reinvention of an old favorite, El Guapo. The key ingredients behind this heat-packing burger/sandwich were sauteed jalapenos and a house made jalapeno-ranch sauce. But there is inconsistency with jalapenos. Sometimes they are overpowering even for spicy food lovers. Sometimes they are too mild.

El Guapo, The Sequel, arriving this month sheds its tomato, lettuce and sauteed jalapenos, and now shines more boldly than ever with a new jalapeno green cabbage slaw that balances well with the bacon and jalapeno-ranch.

Tony’s newest creation, also due this month, is a Farmers Salad that redefines the “Greek Salad” and allows us to showcase bold, juicy local tomatoes. This salad also marks the dawn of a Power Grain component, a new alternative to quinoa, which Tony introduced in 2014 in our now signature collection of kale and quinoa bowls with sauteed veggies.

Along with the Power Grain, the new Farmers Salad merges Mediterranean staples (feta and kalamata olives) with Middle East flavors (cucumber and lemon-mint vinaigrette).

Little wonder that conversations with Chef Tony often begin with a question. What’s next?

LIFE OUT IN FRONT OF THE TREND

It is pretty cool, we have to admit, living out in front of a trend. It is like occupying a parallel universe. Millions are chasing, or perhaps just awakening to, what we are already experiencing, embracing, and advancing every day.

Our future arrived way back when. Everyone else still is anticipating it.

What we’re getting at here is the real food revolution that was launched by three courageous guys in 2004 when they opened a little fast-casual restaurant in Boston. They called it b.good because one of the guys had a feisty uncle named Farris who repeatedly admonished the boys to “be good.”

Well, let’s just say, Farris underestimated them. They had designs on being great, not merely good. They created a brand based on a bold but simple premise. Let’s create a fast-casual menu that is wedded to real food. Fresh, organic produce. All-natural beef for burgers. Locally sourced ingredients. Innovative salads. And the game changer of them all: warm organic quinoa married with marinated kale as the foundation of a sauteed veggie bowl. Then, they agreed, let’s prepare and serve this food affordably, in a fun, rustic environment.

So here we are. It’s 2015. FORTUNE magazine, which is a highly credible source for business people who want to know what consumers are demanding, put a team of researchers to work exploring the real food trend.

Let us pause here to acknowledge something: We can’t prove it, but we are increasingly confident that the founders of b.good might have coined the phrase, “real food”. It is popping up everywhere, these days. In 2004, it drew blank stares.

But as we suggested at the outset, real food is not a concept, it’s a reality, and some of us have been living it for many years. Here is how the phenomenon is described by an executive from Nestle, one of this nation’s predominant consumer packaged food brands: “Change is happening at a pace we’ve never seen before,” Paul Grimwood told FORTUNE. Consumers adopting new food trends “is at its highest level, probably ever.”

So while comics and satire writers skewer leafy kale and grains such as quinoa and freekeh, a growing segment of our population is finding that they never want to go back to processed, frozen, packaged food as a component of their diets.

Throughout b.good’s brief history — we’re just now tip-toeing into our second decade — we’ve jumped on the surfboard and ridden the crest of dietary change.

It’s nice to be out here, just ahead of what’s trending, already looking for the “new kale”.

National Hamburger Day 2.0

So we tread uncharted ground at b.good, you might say. We have a substantial open-flame grill, on which we sear beautiful, grass-fed, all-natural beef patties, formed by hand. No antibiotics. Never frozen. From locally raised NC cattle. We send them out medium, juicy, delicious.

We can more than hold our own on National Hamburger Day, which happens to be today. The reality is that in these United States every day is Hamburger Day. We digress.

But our b.good family knows well that we are not a “burger joint”. We have the luxury of being able to “have it all” on National Hamburger Day.

Sure, order up some of our oven-finished fries, real or (locally grown) sweet potato. That’s a perfectly normal companion for a burger. And, yet, imagine the possibilities. Why not reinvent the burger experience?

Why not pair a b.good burger such as the edgy “Goomba”, dressed up in arugula, wild mushrooms, smoked Gouda and red pepper vinaigrette, with a side of our local grilled asparagus from Vollmer Farm? (Especially because local asparagus will soon be gone).

Goomba with Local Strawberry Goat Cheese Salad

Or, why not a burger with a side salad version of our Local Strawberry Goat Cheese Salad? These are Vollmer Farm strawberries, teamed up with candied walnuts, figs and house made balsamic vinaigrette.

Here’s another way to skirt the ordinary. Do the hyper-local strategy. Locally sourced, house ground burger, accented with NC pimento cheese (we offer Red Clay Gourmet’s jalapeno-pimento exclusively), on a white brioche bun baked in Pittsboro, paired with a craft beer brewed by our friends at Big Boss, Crank Arm, Lonerider or White Street.

Whatever you do, do not be a conformist on National Hamburger Day.

LESSONS FROM THE CLASSROOM

The b.good commitment to real food, or what some consumers call “clean food”, attracts folks who are both enthusiastic and inquisitive. When it comes to the latter we have to be ready to answer some very specific questions about the ingredients behind our menu.

What is organic and what is not. What is Gluten-free and what is not. We do not expect our employees to have encyclopedic knowledge of the menu, but we do equip them with a hardcover guide by the cashier station, entitled, How We Do What We Do.

Our nutrition guide.

The guide answers 90% of the questions that come through the door, but sometimes we discover that we have overlooked a factual nugget here and there.

For example, we are thrilled to serve Maine Root soft drinks. They contain no high fructose corn syrup and no genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and those that are not sugar-free are sweetened using fair trade certified, organic cane sugar. Maine Root is a splendid alternative to mainstream soft drinks, but a diabetic customer who visited our North Hills location in Raleigh wanted a bit more detail. We discovered that both our paper menus and our guide do not detail calories, carbs or sugar contained in a 16-ounce serving. That will be remedied soon.

We never stop honing our working knowledge of the b.good real food menu or the sourcing and preparation of the ingredients that set it apart as local, natural and fresh. Our friends and neighbors make it a priority to be well-informed about what they eat to a degree that was rare even a few years ago.

And we have every reason to believe that trend will only intensify after a recent visit to the Carroll Leadership in Technology Magnet Middle School. We were invited to a classroom of eighth graders studying Consumer Foods.

Any worries that the details we would review on kitchen sanitation, food safety and local product sourcing would contribute to heavy eyelids were put aside quickly. It’s reassuring to know that schools like Carroll are teaching courses that will transform these students into discerning consumers with an appetite for real food.

We were asked about the type of cooking oil we use at b.good (Canola). We were asked about our all-natural beef, and why it’s important to know that it is produced using exclusively grass-fed cattle. There was a question about GMOs. One student inquired as to the sanitation score our location received (96.0).

Lunch was served after the Q&A. We brought in locally sourced Harris-Robinette beef burgers, topped with North Carolina sharp cheddar from western Ashe County, on a locally baked white brioche bun. The side was our sauteed crisp veggies. There were a lot more vegetable eaters than you might have found among eighth graders of generations past. We poured house made, cane sugar-based lemonades.

The real food revolution is just getting started, and it will only spread further as tomorrow’s consumers are taught in schools today to make it a point of knowing where their food comes from and how it is prepared.

May is National Hamburger Month

The arrival of May ushers in National Hamburger Month, which seems almost impossible to trace to any logical origins. But as a food blogger noted in a May 2013 observance, why argue with yet another excuse to pursue and eat great burgers?

We could not agree more heartily with that sentiment. It just may be that May was designated because it’s the time of year when backyard grills are brought out of storage around the country. The onset of open flame burger grilling and its welcome aromas is essentially the final phase of the post-winter thaw.

Fortunately, on our little corner of fresh, local culinary passion in North Hills, the char-grilling happens year ’round. Before the brilliant red patty ever lands on the cooking surface there are many other important steps that must be followed with meticulous precision

The real food revolution led by b.good is fueled by a commitment to natural, local ingredients. Beef is no exception. We source it from Pinetops, NC, an hour from our front door beneath the bold, red awnings. Harris-Robinette Beef is entirely grass-fed, hormone-free, pesticide-free and produced by people with an unwavering commitment to sustainability.

Amy and Patrick Robinette are passing that commitment along to their children, including daughter McKayla, who tells the story quite convincingly in a brief video.

Inside b.good, our lunchtime grill master, Brandon, begins his days un-packaging cuts of fresh Harris-Robinette beef, which is never, ever frozen. Brandon hand grinds the lean beef twice to ensure the density needed to make a consistent patty.

Twice-ground, daily.

When we build the burger that is ultimately served to our customers, it resides atop a locally baked bun and is frequently combined with an array of creative toppings, sauces, cheeses and fresh produce. A seasonal offering that you might consider to kick off National Hamburger Month is called the “Goomba”. It’s unique flavor profile is driven by arugula, sauteed wild mushrooms, smoked Gouda cheese, and a shot of our Chef’s red pepper vinaigrette.

The ‘Goomba’

But, because it’s May, and fresh produce is beginning to arrive, it’s an ideal time to build a hyper-local burger. Try this. Our burger between a white brioche bun baked in Pittsboro at The Bread Shop, topped with a slice of sharp cheddar from Ashe County Cheese in the Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. Next, add sliced tomato, ripe and delicious direct from Vollmer Farm in Bunn, and red onion. Then request an order of a seasonal side of Vollmer’s asparagus. We hit this fresh asparagus with a shot or two of Canola oil, a light sprinkle of salt, and grill it right alongside the burgers for about two minutes.

Apart from the asparagus, assembling a simple, local burger nearly replicates the rules established since back in 1900 at Louis’ Lunch, where the American hamburger was born, or so many believe. The moment transpired 115 years ago in New Haven, CT, when ground steak was placed between two pieces of toast for a hungry customer in a big hurry.

Ever since, the only toppings permissible at Louis’ are cheese, onion and tomato. No condiments.

While today’s b.good experience is the polar opposite for many of our frequent burger aficionados, we can’t disagree with the simple fact that a great burger is always about the beef and the bread.

OUR FAMILY TIES

It was pure serendipity that in the very early days of b.good’s debut in Raleigh’s North Hills we met an exceptional woman named Jennie Greene. She is a typical b.good regular — an energetic, fit mom, attracted to our mission to offer our customers locally sourced, fresh, made-to-order food. Real food.

Jennie has ties to Boston, the birthplace of b.good just 11 years ago. Her mission in 2015 is to run the 119th Boston Marathon to raise funds for the Boston Children’s Hospital.

We could not have known that Jennie’s fundraising was to be directed to a young man from North Carolina, Christian. Five years ago, he began to experience seizures. This determined youngster from the town of Lincolnton, NC, has undergone multiple testing and treatment at Boston Children’s.

To date, Jennie has raised north of $7,000 through the hospital’s Miles for Miracles campaign to help Christian’s family in their quest to restore their son’s health. A portion of those funds were raised during an all-day event at our b.good location in North Hills. We could not have been more pleased to present a check to support her effort.

We’re excited about Jennie’s Marathon experience this Monday in Boston. Last year, the city’s newest b.good opened on iconic Boylston Street. It is located at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Standing at the front door, your eye is immediately drawn to a large white stripe extending from one side of the street to the other. The Marathon finish line is symbolic of a great sports event and, sadly, Boston’s stoic resolve in the aftermath of the tragic 2013 terrorist attack when bombs altered lives forever near this very location.

Thanks to Jennie’s dedication, there is a moment on the horizon this Monday when an extraordinary woman from Raleigh, a member of the b.good Family, will cross over a finish line in Boston, in view of fellow b.good customers gathered to cheer on her and fellow runners. Her journey will end even as Jennie’s tenacity sustains Christian on the uncertain road that lies ahead for him.