Tonight during West Seattle Art Walk, Mackenzie Berg and Miguel Cornelio are featured artists at Chaco Canyon Organic Café (3770 SW Alaska; WSB sponsor) – read about them and preview their work here.
Chaco Canyon is also celebrating two big achievements: An anniversary and an award. (And read through to the end to learn about an expansion!) The announcement from proprietor Chris Maykut:
Fresh off celebrating our 10th anniversary on September 1st, the Chaco Canyon Organic Café received its biggest accolades to date, winning the 2013 Green Washington Award in the Food and Beverage category of the annual event put on by Seattle Business Magazine.
Being recognized in the same forum as such luminaries as Fred Hutchinson, Microsoft, and the University of Washington, we are truly honored that our small business was recognized for the one thing that our mission and outright existence are built around: creating a more sustainable planet and enrolling our community in this.
Excerpts from our award acceptance speech, which we were told by the host of the evening was the “best of the night”:
“First off, I want to thank Seattle Business Magazine for this award and for celebrating the concept of business taking a leadership role in the concept of community sustainability. This award is dedicated to the hundreds of former and current employees that we have had through our 10 years of existence. It wasn’t always like this, as you all know. I graduated from Berkeley in the ’90s with a business degree and the clear message that the concept of sustainability and profit were mutually exclusive.
“Much has changed in the last 20 years, in both curriculum and practice, but disparity still reigns in our society. In founding the Chaco Canyon Organic Café 10 years ago, I’ve been driven to prove the messaging I received wrong, and to create a business that can succeed by being completely unreasonable with regards to our green practices: Namely, putting sustainability first at almost any cost. We’ve done pretty well with that, and I couldn’t be prouder of all of my incredibly hard-working staff that have come together to collaborate and make us who we are over the last decade, culminating with this award tonight.
“I’ll leave you all with a call to action. In the course of your businesses over the next decade, push the envelope with this ethic. Be unreasonable. Choose a green strategy not because you think it will save you money or bring you more business, but simply because it’s the right thing to do. What we do as innovative business leaders can create a ripple effect throughout our community, and who knows what we can change together?”
Opened in a tiny 800sf space on Brooklyn Avenue in 2003, Chaco Canyon Café has grown to 2 locations and 53 staff in our 10 years. We are obsessed with sustainability, and have built into our mission statement that the more we grow as a company, the closer we will adhere to our values. We plan on opening our third location in Ballard by the fall of 2014.
P.S. Rejoining the WSB sponsor team recently, Chaco Canyon has a new coupon on the WSB Coupons page – 10 percent off your ticket – get it here.
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