Denver, Colorado Vegetarian Restaurant Review: Mercury Cafe

Website: http://www.mercurycafe.com/

Address: 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205

Phone: 294-9281 (information), 294-9258 (reservations)

Mercury Café is one of the best vegetarian/vegan restaurants in the Denver area. The food is excellent, and the atmosphere is also unique. Not only can you eat great vegetarian food at the Mercury Café, you can also be entertained with music and dance.

The menu isn't the only "green" thing about Mercury café. Mercury Café is green in every sense of the word. For instance, even though they are in the middle of downtown Denver, an area made up primarily of concrete, the Mercury Café is surrounded by trees, and a garden of sage, mint, and grape vines. The vegetation has grown and now goes up the side of the building, making the Mercury Café a true oasis.

To water the lush garden, employees of the Mercury Café use water and leftover coffee not consumed by patrons. Leftover water from the ice machine is also used to water the plant wall outside this Denver area vegetarian restaurant.

Another unique water-saving feature of the Mercury Café is that the 11toilets found in the restaurant are unlike any I've ever seen anywhere else. They have hand-washing sinks above the toilet tops. The gray water left over from hand-washing is used to flush the toilets.

Mercury Café also seeks to use as little electricity as possible. They actually generate as much of their own electricity as possible. They do this two ways: through air turbines placed on the roof and through the use of solar panels. Any electricity they need to purchase is purchased through Xcel Energy's WindSource program. Mercury Café hopes to eventually produce all of it's own electricity through additional wind turbines.

To further save energy, there is no air conditioning at the Mercury Cafe. Instead, swamp coolers, which consume less electricity are used, and the windows are kept open during warmer weather to allow air to circulate. There are also no computers or televisions on the premises, and a concentrated refrigeration process is used where three of the refrigerators are turned off regularly. You will also find only acoustic music and other electricity-free forms of entertainment in this restaurant as another means of conserving electricity.

You're probably convinced at this point that the Mercury Café in downtown Denver is indeed a green restaurant; but what about the food?

Mercury Café makes all of its own bread using whole grains, cold pressed oil, and natural sweeteners. They use sea salt for enhancing flavor, and unless the menu says otherwise on a particular item, you can rest assured that all offerings are completely vegetarian.

You can start the day with breakfast including omelets made with organic eggs, whole grain pancakes, and several vegetarian options as well such as herbed tofu with quinoa and toast. Breakfast prices range from $5.00 - $12.00. Children's breakfasts are also available, starting at $2.00, or you can get a single egg for only $1.00.

As is true with all meals, the lunch menu includes a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian offerings including entrees made with tofu and tempeh, salads, enchiladas, and even elk burgers for the meat eaters in your party. Lunch prices range from $5.00 to $12.00.

The dinner menu at Mercury Café includes pastas, tofu, chicken and fish. High tea is also available. Dinner prices range from $9 - 18.

I've obviously chosen to focus this article on the Mercury Café in Downtown Denver, but if the Mercury Café is not in a convenient location for you, or if you just want to try some other vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the Denver area, here are some other suggestions.

Denver Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurant #2: Duo Restaurant

http://www.duodenver.com/

Denver Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurant #3: Watercourse Foods

http://www.watercoursefoods.com/

Denver Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurant #4: Extreme Pizza

http://www.extremepizza.com

Denver Vegetarian/Vegan Restaurant #5: Masalaa Restaurant (Indian vegetarian)

http://www.masalaausa.com/

In addition to the above listed possibilities, when it comes to vegetarian dining in the Denver area, don't forget chains such as Noodles and Company (www.noodles.com) and Sweet Tomatoes (www.souplantation.com), that have numerous locations throughout the Denver area.