DAN SIMONS

It’s Earth Day, and our news stories and social media are filled with images and videos of the planet earth. And the news is mostly bad. The Arctic is melting, nasty storms are devastating entire regions and countries, there are miles and miles of giant garbage patches floating in The Pacific and now in The Caribbean, and even the microplastics coming from our cozy, fleece clothing are getting into our food supply chain, our ground water, and our bloodstream. If your feeds ar

Trash. Waste. Carbon footprint. Guilt. Capitalism. Ugh. It can all get overwhelming for me because I care. I care about all of it. When I feel overwhelmed, there are two things I do in rapid succession: Plan and Take Action. It makes me feel much better when I’m in motion, moving towards something, rather than drowning in self-inflicted inertia. A bit of history. I never used plastic straws in our Farmers restaurants. From the very beginning (2008), we used compostable straws

C’mon, did you think I wasn’t going to write about plastic straws? I’ve been nuts about humans destroying the planet and themselves for years. This has driven me to ensure that all of our restaurants are built and operated in sustainably-minded ways. I finally decided to go outside the four walls of our restaurants and try and make a bigger impact. But you don’t have to read about it here, I started a non-profit – Our Last Straw – so I could make a meaningful impact. Our Last