Company: Garden Hill
Owner: Rob Yaffe
Number of employees: 12 (full-time and part-time)
Type of business: Vegetarian restaurant and juice bar
Location: 727 East Ave., Pawtucket
Year founded : 1996
Annual revenues : WND
The Garden Grill added something to its menu that most vegetarian places before them painfully overlooked: taste.
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“Vegetarian food used to get a bad rap 10-15 years ago, because it was bland. It just didn’t taste good,” said Rob Yaffe, owner of the Pawtucket restaurant.
Today, Yaffe said, his cooks prepare soy-based burgers that will satisfy the most diehard meat lover. And along with a variety of vegetable wraps, wood grilled pizzas and burritos the business has captured a mainstream customer base.
Garden Grill has been peddling healthy foods for four years at the Blackstone Place shopping plaza near the Providence city line. The company has benefited from being close to Providence’s East Side, an area that has the demographics – educated, well-to-do people – that would support alternative food choices like vegetarian.
Yaffe, who hopes to franchise the business, said his key to success has been realizing that vegetarians alone are not enough to support the business. He estimates that less than 25 percent of his customers are strict vegetarians.
“That’s why it was so important for us to attract non-vegetarians who might want to incorporate this type of diet into their lifestyle,” explained Yaffe, a vegetarian. “Vegetarian has become another choice of foods. Some nights people want Mexican or Chinese and some nights they want to try vegetarian.”
Yaffe has been in this market for over 25 years. Yaffe and his mother owned the natural food store The Golden Sheaf on Wickenden Street in Providence from 1970 to 1990.
“The Golden Sheaf closed because Bread & Circus (on Butler Avenue in Providence) put us out of business. It was difficult to compete with such a large chain,” said Yaffe.
After the Golden Sheaf, Yaffe worked for five years as a sales and marketing representative for Garden Burger, one of the country’s largest makers of vegetarian burgers.
Yaffe saw the dramatic growth in vegetarian burgers and decided to get in on it.
His idea for the 1,800-square-foot location on East Avenue was to start the first in a chain of fast food vegetable burger shops.
“What I ended up with was nothing like I had in mind,” Yaffe said, shaking his head.
Yaffe said to stay in business he had to triple the size of the blackboard he uses for a menu to include diverse offers to capture the interest of the local clientele, who wanted more than veggie burgers.
Pizzas, wraps and burritos are among the business’s most popular products. Burgers account for less than 25 percent of sales.
Yaffe said catering has been a vital area the restaurant has been moving toward and today means almost one-third of its business.
“Corporate catering has been phenomenal. A lot of businesses want something different rather than the same old roast beef and tuna sandwiches,” he explained.
For catering purposes only, Yaffee said, the company will make seafood and chicken dishes. But at the restaurant it’s only fruits and vegetables as well as some dairy products.
Garden Grill cook Matthew Martin III said he likes making vegetarian dishes for several reasons.
“Cooking here is not only about filling peoples’ stomachs, but also making them feel good,” he said, as he adds some carrot tops to water to be used as a vegetable stock.
Jodi Robidoux, who has worked at Garden Grill since it opened, said the restaurant’s menu has helped dismiss the notions that vegetarian equals awful tasting.
“Some people are afraid of the word ‘tofu’ for instance. It has a bad connotation, so people don’t try it,” said Robidoux, a strict vegetarian. “Because our food is so tasty people are giving it a chance.”
She added, “There are some dishes here that taste so much like meat that I don’t eat them. So there is something for everyone to try.”
