East Side/Riverwest: Snapshot: Alterra on Prospect

My string of luck in encountering good quality and service at the places I go continues unabated. This early evening, I'm enjoying a mug of Cafe Voltaire at Alterra on Prospect and a fresh Bountiful Garden muffin.  Apropos of nothing, while walking on the Oak Leaf trail from the Upper to the Lower East Side, I heard a whole complement of church bells and carillons marking the 6 p.m. hour.  Church bells are among my top five favorite things in life, so the unexpected concert was especially welcome.  (Unexpected, because it doesn't exactly fit my stereotype of the neighborhoood!)

Despite my recent good experiences, I have to voice one criticism that's been bugging me for a while: Alterra seems to do a poor job of promoting the use of ceramic mugs.  (I have to qualify this by stating that they're doing about 30% in the cafe right now, which is actually above average.)  Considering the amount of "for here" business they do, as far as I can tell, customers aren't given ceramic unless they specifically ask for them.  In that light, I find myself less receptive to hearing about any environmental or social welfare initiatives in which Alterra is active.  The way I see it, for Alterra, the beverages that cross the counter are where the rubber hits the road.  It's what they do.  If they don't take advantage of that huge opportunity to make an environmental difference, everything else seems diminished.

Comments

[dwillis]

How about the lack of recycling of #1 plastic cups? Last summer they went through a phase with signage saying, to paraphrase, "hey, it's cool that we don't recycle plastic because we're spending extra for corn-based biodegradable plasticware".....which is a highly suspect position since the corn-based stuff is created mainly with oil products (gas, fertilizer) and irrigation, and doesn't get a chance to degrade when it's sealed up tight in a landfill. But now they're back to an even worse situation, using good quality #1 plastic and not a sign of recycling anywhere. How much wind power do they have to buy to offset that?