If you venture far enough down Main St., you might notice a change in culture, substance and smell. Past the high-end fine dining establishments sits a new age vegan restaurant and bar “full of life and energy.”
Christina Brockington is the manager of Good Life Café, one of Columbia's only organic, raw and vegan restaurants. Brockington has seen an increase in the number of college students entering her restaurant, which she attributes to the restaurant's distinctive style.
Brockington sees the university as offering more people she thinks are the type who would attend Good Life, since prospective students are thinking more carefully about lifestyle before they go off to school, she said.
“I know more students are starting to choose college based on the Green Quad and sustainable living,” Brockingtonsaid. “We offer organic local produce, everything is vegan and raw, made in house — everything from our crackers to our bread. I think students are just more conscious now of it.”
She sees Good Life as just the right sort of thing for the growing interest in sustainability.
The menu at Good Life consists of a variety of noodles, salads, sandwiches and a bevy of ethnic dishes that incorporate Italian, Indian, Thai and Mexican influences. And that diversity reflects the cafe's commitment to seasoned cuisine.
“We really believe in spice palates. You have to have flavorful food, no one wants to eat healthy if it tastes like cardboard,” Brockington said. “We do an array. The spices that we can get our hands on are just amazing — spices I'd never heard of before I came here.”
At the same time, Good Life tries to focus on local ingredients, since the staff believes that the more local the food is, the better. The strive for giving Good Life a local accent can get dicey at times, which compels a dynamic menu.
“The hardest thing is getting stuff that's local that's seasonal. Sometimes we run out of stuff and don't have access to certain things. We only serve the best produce that we can get our hands on,” she said. “So if we don't have it then we just don't have it and sometimes that can be a little complicating for people that want to order stuff on the menu.”
Unsurprisingly, a new age style restaurant has its share of skeptics. But Brockington is not deterred and welcomes the challenge of suspicious customers.
Her advice: just try it.
“My favorite compliment is to have people that come in like, 'Oh, we're meat and potatoes people,' and they just try it. We don't serve bland, crappy food,” she said. “While you might not be used to zucchini noodles, they still take the place of noodles, and while our tacos might be a little different, they're still tacos. You only live once, so just try it.”
The experience of Good Life is all about trying something new, and that's fitting — the restaurant itself is still developing and changing its menu to stay fresh.
“We do the vegan cooked breakfast on the weekends,” she said. “We have daily specials that are different every single day and then we also change our menu about once or twice a year. We are constantly changing.”