GreenSpace: A Side of Good with Room for Improvement

In 2004 a TV show called Lost premiered and millions of people were obsessed with every episode. There was a hysteria over "the island", Jon Lock , and polar bears, but after 8 years and one writer's strike we all found ourselves asking, was that it? It was one of the biggest entertainment let downs of my life, I wanted more! I felt the same way when I left Ferndale's newest restaurant GreenSpace Cafe on Thursday. The meal was a tease, a preview of what might be and at the end of the night I found myself asking, was that it?

GreenSpace Café  describes itself as "an artisanal plant-based restaurant and craft cocktail bar". Their menu changes daily, their service was impeccable, and their cocktails were delicious. I tried their version of a Moscow Mule, which featured blackberries, and was blown away by how tasty it was. The restaurant shows a lot of promise, but fell short for one very specific reason. Despite spending around $35 for dinner, I left the place starving.  

I ordered a cocktail and the Green Curry entree. My dining mate ordered the same cocktail, the mushrooms tacos, and a red skin potato appetizer to split. Our food came out extremely fast, but when I looked down at my curry, I was a little bummed out with my portion until I looked up and saw my dining mates tacos. She said the tacos were tasty, but they were essentially the size of a large tortilla chip stuffed with no more than 5 pieces of mushroom. We enjoyed everything we ordered, but finished very quickly. When we were done the waitress returned and asked if we would like to see the menu to order more, but we declined. The problem was that both of our meals were in the $14 range so we couldn't really justify spending more money on dinner even though we were still hungry. As we were paying for our meal a representative from the restaurant came over and asked if we liked our food. She had been walking around the room asking for feedback from all of the tables, so my dining mate let her know that while we enjoyed what we got, there simply wasn't enough of it.

The owner/manager went on to explain that the idea behind the space is "small plates", small dishes to pass with a group of people. While the idea of sharing sounds nice, the reality is that at $12-$15  a plate, a couple would have to spend at least $60 to have a fulfilling meal. I don't know about you, but $60 for a normal sized, plant based meal is a little to rich for my blood.  

I was really pumped for a new vegetarian locally sourced food joint to open in Ferndale, but I have to admit that when it was all said and done, I was let down by GreenSpace. Not "Lost let down" because the food I had was awesome, just kinda bummed that I didn't leave smiling ear to ear because it has the potential to be a great place. I am however hopeful that they may switch things up in the future and I would recommend going there for a drink because despite the $12 price tag, that Mule was worth the money.

~S