ENTERTAINMENT

What it takes to be the No. 1 green certified restaurant

Lillia Callum-Penso
lpenso@greenvillenews.com
Kitchen Sync has earned a top rating from the Green Restaurant Association.

After just two months in business, Kitchen Sync is already making its mark on the green community. The restaurant, which opened in June, last week was named the No. 1 independent certified green restaurants in the country by the Green Restaurant Association.

The recognition came as a welcome surprise to the restaurant’s three owners, Kevin Feeny, Karin Feeny Farrell and John Farrell, who on almost every night, can be found working there.

“We’ve worked very hard to focus on doing all of these things responsibly,” Feeny said. “But it kind of caught up to us a little bit quicker than we anticipated and it really exceeded our goals from what we originally set out to do.

But, Feeny added, “it’s an ongoing evolving process, and the hard work has only just begun.”

Kitchen Sync might best be described as a culmination of all the great ideas the owners – Feeny, along with his sister, Karin Feeny Farrell and Karin’s husband, John Farrell – have collected over their collective years and years of experience in restaurants. So everything, from design of the reclaimed wood bar, to the creative American fare to the local product sourcing is theirs. And that includes the green focus.

“We decided if we were going to make this a reality, we were going to try to do it in a responsible way,” Feeny said.

The owners sought the help of the Green Restaurant Association to help them pull the pieces together.

In total, Kitchen Sync earned a 4 Star SustainBuild Certified Green Restaurant rating of 437.30 GreenPoints.

Certification from GRA requires meeting environmental criteria in seven areas: water efficiency; waste reduction and recycling; sustainable durable goods and building materials; sustainable food; energy; reusables and environmentally preferable disposables; and chemical and pollution reduction.

Restaurants earn a certain number of points for their efforts in each area. For instance, a restaurant can earn as many as 333 points for having onsite renewable energy systems like solar panels or a wind turbine, or 8.25 points for using a green certified pest control company.

Certifications range from a 1 Star (minimum 62 GreenPoints) to a 4 Star certification (minimum of 300 GreenPoints.

The SustainaBuild category, which governs new builds and renovations, requires even more. To receive this designation, a restaurant must accumulate a higher minimum number of GreenPoints within energy, water, waste, chemicals, and building; have a full-scale recycling program, including construction recycling; and be free of polystyrene foam (Styrofoam).

The takeout containers, cups, straws and even plastic bags are made from materials that can be composted.

The green elements weave throughout the restaurant from the compostable takeout containers and the straws to working with Atlas Organics to collect and compost food waste.

Also, after learning of the suspension of glass recycling in Greenville, the owners decided not to serve any beer or wine in glass bottles. Instead, they serve beer in cans, wine in cardboard boxes and both wine and beer on tap.

“Some of these things are more expensive but some of these things are as endemic to efficient operations of a business as they are from an environmental standpoint,” Feeny said. “A lot of it is just breaking the narrative and changing behaviors to ones that have more ecological integrity.”

Not only does Kitchen Sync use all Energy Star appliances, from stoves to dishwasher to heating and cooling, but the restaurant is also outfitted with solar panels, and saves energy with a variable speed hood system. The hood system has an automatic turn off function that allows it to self-shut down.

Because of its specialized function, the system, along with many of the other green components cost more, Feeny says.

“A lot of these challenges we’re facing societally, environmentally, economically are large difficult things to swallow,” Feeny said. “But for a small neighborhood joint like us the only way we can do anything to tackle that it focus on one bite at a time. Hopefully, we can do our small part.”

At Kitchen Sync, even old menus are repurposed, turned into coasters.

Kitchen Sync is one of only three restaurants in the U.S. to hold both the 4 Star and SustainaBuild ratings. It is the highest rated Certified Green Restaurant in the Southeast, one of only four Certified Green Restaurants in South Carolina and the only Certified Green Restaurant in Greenville.

For more information, visit www.kitchensyncgreenville.com