b.good
HQ: Boston
Units: 54
Type: Fast-casual restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner
Average check: Under $10
Expanding fast-casual chain b.good recently entered a two-year partnership with the city to manage Hannah Farm on one of Boston Harbor’s islands, about a mile from the city.
As part of the agreement, b.good can use produce harvested from the farm for its Boston restaurants, but 75 percent is earmarked for the cafeteria at the summer camp on the island for kids in underserved neighborhoods.
“We have always told the tale about how dedicated we are to local food, and we have always had relationships with farmers, but we were really interested in getting to the next level,” says Jon Olinto, b.good’s co-founder.
To manage the acre-and-a-half farm, b.good uses its own employees as well as the campers and volunteers. They harvest the produce and send it back by boat to the city. Produce taken from the farm is also sold at a farmers market in the city, and the funds go toward a scholarship for ex-campers.
Olinto estimates the farm will produce 20,000 pounds of produce this year from the 15 crops being planted, including kale, romaine and bibb lettuces, strawberries, potatoes, sweet potatoes, radishes, green and yellow wax beans, and even quinoa.
In the original restaurant, b.good uses a chalkboard menu detailing where seasonal ingredients come from to communicate its involvement with the farm to its customers. Other locations feature a further commitment to growing their own vegetables. At one location, tomatoes, herbs and lettuces grow directly on the rooftop in kiddy pools. The Seaport Boston location features an 8-foot-by-8-foot glass-enclosed hydroponic growing room at the front of the restaurant for mint, basil and other herbs, and microgreens.
“As you walk in the front door, you see a wall of fresh herbs,” says Olinto, who enlisted an urban farming organization to help build the system about a year ago. “You have to consider the proper lighting, pest control and watering needs.”
Throughout the dining rooms of its restaurants, b.good uses reclaimed wood. For the 20 Boston locations, wood comes from mills in Rhode Island.
All the restaurant locations recycle and compost.