St. Louis Earth Day Festival 2023

The St. Louis Earth Day Festival is a community tradition to learn about sustainable products and services offered by local businesses and organizations, meet local area non-profits that share Earth Day values, as well as showcasing local entertainment and local Green Dining Alliance  restaurants. The 2022 festival brought in 15,000 attendees! This is a great event to showcase your commitment to sustainable dining, increase sales, and grow your customer base. Click the button below to sign up today!

When: April 22-23, 2023 (11am-5pm both days)

Where: Muny Grounds in Forest Park

The 2023 GDA Passport can be picked up in store at Buzz's Hawaiian Grill, Confluence Kombucha, Kitchen House Coffee,  or SqWires Resaurant and Market. The passport features 20 GDA members and is sponsored by StraightUp Solar, Advertisers Printing, and Blackrock Consulting. The GDA Passport offers are valid for 2023 and can be redeemed starting January 1st. Passports can now be ordered online by clicking the button below.

Special thanks to the 2023 participating GDA members:

The Blue Duck • Buzz's Hawaiian Grill • Crispy Edge • Crushed Red (Clayton) • Crushed Red (Kirkwood) • Flavor360 • Kitchen House Coffee • Living Room • Old Bakery Brewing Co. • Pat Connolly Tavern • Perennial Artisan Ales • Pizza Head • The Post (Creve Coeur) • The Post (Maplewood) • SqWire's • Wolf Café   • Confluence Kombucha • Gezellig Taphouse • Pie Guy • Retreat Gastropub

Support local, green dining and join in the conversations of fellow environmentalists and sustainable living advocates. The second Wednesday of each month will feature a new GDA-certified establishment for happy hour. STL Green Drinks will be hosting their December happy hour at GDA-certified Gezellig Taphouse & Bottleshop in The Grove. The space is connected with GDA certified Pie Guy, so grab a local beer AND a slice of pizza!

When: Wednesday, December 14 (6-8pm)

Location: Gezellig Taphouse & Bottleshop (4191 Manchester Ave, 63110)

*Contact Ben@earthday-365.org if you would be interested in hosting a Green Drinks happy hour in 2023. Expected guest counts are typically 20-30 guests.

Reducing Food Waste in the Restaurant Industry

One way to prevent food waste is to provide staff with resources on what to do with surplus food. Help combat climate change by keeping food out of the landfill, where it creates methane gas. Plus it prevents all those resources that went into making the food from being wasted. Best of all, it saves you money! You may need smaller dumpsters with less frequency in pickups, or pay less to compost. [Composting is great, but commercial composting is not free and we're still losing out on all the resources that went into creating the product.] On top of feeling good about reducing costs and your environmental impact, you can feel even better knowing that the food you prepared went to someone who truly needs it. 

On a recent audit with Pizza Head, owners Dylan Dodson and Sam Driemeier shared how they handle leftover slices of pizza by working with STL Food Shares. By developing a relationship with STL Food Shares they were able to utilize Food Shares' volunteer staff to pick up their pizzas and send them to North St. Louis. They're well prepared to reduce their food waste footprint every day and help feed people in need in our community. Great work Pizza Head!

If you're interested in working with STL Foods Shares to start your own donation program contact: Ben@earthday-365.org.

For unprepared food or to get in touch with local food shelters in your zip code contact Operation Food Search.

OFS Contact: Ashley Snyder  (314-451-1944)

Ashley.Snyder@OperationFoodSearch.org