of a cafe voted best vegan restaurant of 2004 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Known for its unique name and inventive raw and vegan cuisine, Cafe Gratitude is the end point of a spiritual and culinary journey undertaken by the owners, Matthew and Terces Englehart, who recently sat down with Living Nutrition Magazine to share their philosophy, their vision and their take on raw food.
TC: Cafe Gratitude. A unique name for a restaurant. Tell us the story behind the name and what it signifies for the two of you personally.
Matthew: Originally this whole project started with a board game that Terces and I developed. The board game is about what it takes to train oneself to keep one's attention on all that one's already been given, like abundance and gratitude and generosity. Then, once the board game was finished, we decided we wanted a place for people for people to play the game. In the beginning it was just going to be a regular cafe, nothing special. Then we tried raw, which I had known about since the late 70's -- I was very familiar with the work being done by Ann Wigmore and the Hippocrates Health Institute -- and I had know about the benefits of wheatgrass and raw food for years. But raw had always been more of an ace-in-the-hole diet, a diet to fall back on if you were sick, rather than one for day-to-day life. But we own a thirteen acre organic farm in Hawaii, where we grow bananas, coffee, papayas and greens and we happened to be in touch with some raw foodists in the area and we convinced ourselves to try the diet for 30 days. We felt so good that we just continued on and eventually decided that the cafe should be mainly raw food.
Terces: The idea behind Cafe Gratitude is all about keeping your attention on being thankful for what you've already been given. So the whole notion of the Cafe revolves around what shows up in your life when you focus your attention on being grateful for what you have.
Matthew: A lot of times you say to yourself, Oh, if I get this or I get that, then I'll be grateful. But what we're talking about is being grateful as a matter of course in our daily lives and then experiencing the abundance that shows up as a result of that gratitude. Practice gratitude first and circumstances will sort themselves out afterwards.
Terces: Right. And the Cafe is really a live version of the game we invented to express that gratitude. We lead a workshop on the game for all our employees. They've all taken the workshop and they all participate in playing the game in a work environment.
TC: That comes across in the unique names of the dishes at the cafe and the way the wait staff presents them. Dishes with names such as "I am fulfilled", "I am fruitful", "I am celebrating" and so on are the hallmark of your restaurant. The food conveys emotions as well as nutrition. How did this unusual way of describing food come about?
Matthew: Well, I think what a lot of people don't realize is that we are always mentally creating our experience. Either in a positive or negative fashion. So "I am shy", for instance, is one type of affirmation. So are: "I am poor, I am ugly, I am unorganized. I should be better." Each of these thoughts is a practiced way of being. Each thought creates an experience. Mostly, the experience created is something less than perfect, something less than God, something less than Spirit.
Affirmations are just ways people shape and practice their experiences. As human beings, our experience is given by the conversations we have about life with ourselves. So the menu is just an opportunity for people to practice a different view of life and to create a more positive view of themselves.
Terces: Affirmations are a way of pointing people in a certain direction, of shifting their attention.
on the menu called "I am generous", well, it may be the first time they've ever said anything like that in a restaurant -- and some people resist it. And that's fine. When their food is ready, the server brings the plate and announces "You are generous." Or "You are fulfilled". Or "You are magical". Each dish has a name and a message. And it's like every other message in life. We know that if we tell ourselves that we're fulfilled or we're complete or we're generous or we're grateful, we align with that. Just like if you tell yourself that you're lazy or disorganized or fat, you align with that. And for us it's just an opportunity for people to actually get that they are an expression of God or Spirit or whatever they choose to be. So it all comes back to the board game the restaurant was built around. Ordering is part of playing the game.
Matthew: It's all about spiritual nutrition.
TC: Spiritual programming as well, seems to me.
Terces and Matthew: Absolutely.
TC: The first thing that strikes a newcomer to your restaurant is the sign outside and above the front door that pictures the face of a woman wearing sunglasses looking out on a grey, barren landscape. Yet the woman's sunglasses reflect a colorful bounty of fruit. This is a striking image that seems to be in concert with what we've been talking about. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The world is what we make of it. Is that what you had in mind?
Matthew: That, all of that. And that it's a barren orchard but the women sees the harvest in her mind's eye and has the knowingness that she will be supplied, that she will be provided for.
There is a faith in knowing. We don't doubt that the sun is going to rise, that the grass is going to grow, or that there will be fruit next year. But many of us are constantly worrying that we're going to be poor or in the gutter or forgotten. Human beings inherit a scarcity paradigm.
Scarcity is everywhere, we can't escape it. But this Cafe is actually an opportunity to practice the kind of awareness that says, Yes, we are provided for. If you really look at your life and the insignificant number of meals you've missed and how you've managed to see things through even in the worst of times, you have to come to the conclusion that yes, we really are provided for. Mostly we don't see it because we're looking at life through a scarcity paradigm.
TC: To counteract that scarcity paradigm, then, you embrace gratitude and abundance?
Terces: Absolutely. If you place your attention on what you're lacking -- not enough time, not enough love, not enough money -- that's what you get. So we're saying: what would happen if you shifted your attention to plenty of time, plenty of love, plenty of money; perhaps that would be your experience.
TC: Nourishment is spiritual as well as physical.
Terces: It's all of that. We provide the best possible food the planet has to offer and an
environment that allows people to flourish and nourish and sustain themselves and sustain the world they live in.
the door. The magical paintings on the walls, the board game embossed on every table, the attention to detail -- there's a coherent design here that places food in the larger context of life.
Was this design present from the beginning or did it develop incrementally and piecemeal?
Terces: It's a combination of both, really. Mostly, this happened by us just listening to our own internal guidance, whatever you want to call that. We just said: What's going to show up if we turn our lives over to just trusting our own internal wisdom? And that was how we got initially guided to creating a board game. Neither of us had ever invented a board game. Neither of us had any experience in that area. We just sat down and for a year we worked on the board game and on an accompanying workbook. And we were lead through a friend of ours, Julia Stege, who does our graphic arts, to a friend of hers, Frank Riccio, who is the artist behind all the illustrations in the game, the book and the cafe. So one thing led to another. But for me it was our willingness to get out of the way, to not view it as silly, to not judge it as right or wrong -- that was the key. And we're still doing that. As we get ready to expand, we're going way beyond what we imagined our lives to be like. We decided we were going to turn our lives over to be completely of service to the highest calling that we felt guided by and we would just show up and participate fully in that. So the attention to detail came from listening and being committed to creating both an environment for the food and a environment for people to heal themselves and heal the planet.
Matthew: We wanted people to be uplifted.
Terces: Inspired. And we still are doing that, we just wanted to remain open to wherever we were guided, wherever we were led.
TC: Was there any kind of turning point in either of your lives that preceded your decision to come up with this idea for a cafe?
Matthew: Well, we got married.
Terces: Between us, we have five children, all in their twenties.
Matthew: I think we both raised our families separately and then we took a look at the second half of our lives and we asked ourselves the question, What if we just turn our lives over to inner guidance? What if we gave up the strategy of doing this to get that, of doing A to get B -- that whole game. That's OK, but what if we just surrender. When you surrender, you just give your life over to something whether it sounds logical or practical or not. You surrender to what you hear and you go for it.
Terces: You give you life over to service.
Matthew: Yes, the context of our life is really service.
TC: What were you both doing before you started the cafe?
Matthew: Well, in addition to running the farm in Hawaii, I designed and manufactured clothing for thirteen years and then sold that business and started on the game and the book.
Terces: Prior to working for a transformational organization where I was on staff as a registration manager, I had a greeting card company up in Sonoma. We both worked in businesses that were about making a difference in people's lives, but we had not completely surrendered to the work as we have here.
TC: Over the last several months, I've seen more and more people pour through the doors here.
What has surprised you the most about the enormous success of Cafe Gratitude this past year?
Matthew: For me, what we wanted to do with the cafe was merge the sacred and the commercial in the same space. We call it Sacred Commerce. We wanted it to be a place not only for great food, but also a place where people would feel that there was something else going on here.
Something they might not necessarily be able to put their finger on. And from Day One people seemed to understand this and respond to it.
Terces: I think my biggest surprise has been how easily and readily people were open to our idea for this Cafe. I thought we might have more convincing to do. I've always thought that given a choice people would choose light or love or goodness. I'd always thought that, but to see that people respond to the spiritual side of the Cafe, that people get it, people share it -- that reaffirms my belief in humanity. People really do want to eat well, live well and be well.
TC: You have two new branches of the cafe opening soon in the Bay Area. Can you tell us about your plans to expand Cafe Gratitude.
Matthew: Well, the first thing is we're opening a commissary kitchen in a central location to act as a hub kitchen that will supply three restaurants: the current one on Harrison, a new Cafe on 9th Avenue in the Sunset (opening November 21 of this year), and another in Berkeley in January, 2006.
TC: The one in Berkeley is over by Chez Panisse, isn't it?
Terces: Right. And, you know, this is a 24-hour operation. We serve customers until 10 PM.
When we leave around midnight, a night crew comes in and they prep all night long since we do all of our own dehydrated crackers, all of our own juices and so on. Lots and lots of food preparation. So rather than have all-night operations at three locations, we're centralizing the work. All of the cutting and chopping and grinding and mixing, all that night work, will be done at the hub kitchen. That way we'll be more efficient in supplying all three restaurants. And this whole expansion idea was just listening, you know. We were just guided to do this. In fact, we were planning to open the Berkeley restaurant before the Sunset one, but the Sunset location just kind of fell into our laps. So we kept taking small steps, one step at a time, and now the Sunset operation is opening before the Berkeley one. And it may be that we reproduce the same model in other areas. People are always talking to us about expansion.
Matthew: We have two sons in the business now and one of them is interested in taking the model to Los Angeles.
TC: In regard to the expansion, there's kind of a cautionary note here since Urban Forage, another raw food operation, went into expansion mode in the City a year or so ago and weren't
with people, maintaining our integrity. Setting ourselves up so that it's not a win for us and a lose for someone else.
Matthew: Our goal is always win-win. If we stay true to our vision, we believe things will work themselves out from there.
TC: In your day-to-day operations, what's the division of labor between the two of you in running the Cafe?
Matthew: Terces does most of the detail stuff. She's the impulse behind the recipes.
Terces: We pretty much share the overseeing of the restaurant. We do everything together. I guess you could say I'm the one who's more detail-oriented and Matthew's more visionary.
TC: One of the hallmarks of Cafe Gratitude is the consistency of the food that comes out of the kitchen. What's your background in food preparation and how are the recipes created.
Terces: Most of the receipes were created before we opened. We did a lot of experimenting and tasting and the food has evolved. I'm not a recipe person; I make up food as I go. And it was challenging to turn what I did into recipes. It took a while to do that and it took a lot of insistence from other people and a lot of patience with myself and others to be able to create that. And now we have a good foundation of recipes. Life food, of course, varies. Every carrot's not the same. We're not hiding things with cooking and flavors. There is some variation, but we do a good job of recreating the same food as closely as we can. People have been trained in being able to taste and modify and shift recipes so the food comes out the same. And we do a great job. My background in food preparation is mostly just a love of food. I've always loved working in the kitchen and I seem to be gifted in putting things together. Like some people can read and write music, I can read and write food. Also, our kitchen staff is great. They bring their own gifts and skills to the food. Some come from standard food backgrounds, but they've been able to shift their attention to raw food. And there is a lot of training involved.
Matthew: We do a lot of training, particularly in how people show up. We train people to interact with the customers. We train people in being here. Everyone, before they go on a shift, they go through a clearing that gets them out of their head and out of what's not working in their life so they can be present and in love with themselves and the customers.
TC: What kind of clearing, exactly? Can you elaborate on that.
Matthew: It's a process where you first determine what's going on in their interior dialogue and then just let them have that experience and then invite them to shift their attention to a series of questions: What are they grateful for, what would they like to be acknowledged for and so on.
And then we thank them for being here. We do this every day with every employee. That way, instead of bringing their problems at home with them to work -- you know, their fight with their girlfriend or boyfriend, their check that just bounced -- instead of focusing their attention of those types of things, they are here and present. We see our employees as students in a school, a school of gratitude.
TC: Tell us a little bit about the types of people who frequent the cafe. Are they mostly raw, hard-core raw, vegan or omnivores trying out a new cuisine?
Matthew: All kinds. But we don't focus on any one particular group. We want people to think of raw food as a genre, not a position. It's not a dogma for us.
Terces: It's just another option for people interested in healthy food.
Matthew: One night someone may feel like having Thai food, another night they may feel like eating raw. We don't think of it as an on-the-wagon/off-the-wagon sort of thing. We just want to make raw an appealing option for people interested in healthy choices.
Terces: One of the things that's so inspiring to us is the feedback from our customers. How people feel, how good the food tastes -- we're committed to having our live food taste good.
We're committed to having our food be good for you, be nutritious and healthy. Our goal is to produce meals that are nourishing and taste great. That's why people keeping coming back.
They're surprised at how good raw food can be.
TC: Are either of you completely raw?
Matthew: We mainly eat here in the restaurant, but sometimes we eat out in other restaurants or in a friend's home. We're 100% vegan and about 95% raw.
Terces: And it's really because that's what tastes good, that's what makes us feel good. We have some wonderful raw food recipes.
TC: Can you share with us a favorite dish.
Terces: Well, we just created a brand new recipe. A raw lemon meringue pie. I came in here one night and whipped something up and got the recipe to the point where I could pass it off to Matthew Rogers, who's one of our top bakery people, and we now have a raw lemon meringue pie that's off that charts. And where raw lemon meringue pie in the traditional sense is
completely eggs, butter, sugar and flour, this is nutritious . Matthew: And delicious. Unbelievable.
Terces: It's basically sea weed -- irish moss, fresh lemon juice, agave sweetener and macadamia nuts for the crust. We use coconut for the meringue.
TC: Our readers can try it out for themselves (see recipe printed below). One final question. Raw food seems to be an idea whose time has come and the two of you two seem to be at the forefront of the movement in the Bay Area. Where do you see things headed?
Terces: I've always wanted to be able to give back to people, to support people, and I've always loved to cook. So for me it feels great to be a part of feeding people the best food that I know is available. That we're considered a part of that movement is inspiring to me. And if we're going to make the difference we're committed to making, then people eating a sustainable diet -- something that sustains themselves, the planet and others -- is of most importance.
Matthew: And here's the thing: we're in the middle of a health care crisis. Starbucks spends more money on health care than on coffee. GM is going down the tubes because of health care benefits. Every time someone is our society is sick, we all pay for it. We pay for it through high
to turn to a live food diet because it is the first line of defense against ill health. You can probably get rid of 90% of most maladies with a live food diet. So raw food is an idea whose time has come and we're committed at Cafe Gratitude to making it happen sooner rather than later.
