Jessica Ciulla
Professor Mitchell
English 1101
3 March 2018
A vision for sustainable restaurants
What comes to your mind when you think of sustainable restaurants? Now there are many
things that can cross your mind especially the biggest goal in it and that is to reduce waste.
Sustainable restaurants contain recycled furniture, lighting, and they do not use regular air
condition systems and they most likely even compost everything. Well according to Adam Potts
in his Ted Talk about his restaurants that he has created, he tells us everything we need to know.
He has a phenomenal way of explaining in a honest, clear and easy way for you to understand
the vision he had and has still to accomplish the goal he has when it comes to making restaurants
Sustainable. He started by using a potato as an example to explain how many forms a potato has to go through till it is eventually thrown away, that allows people to question and realize they have to go through all these forms and then that’s it is just thrown away like nothing? He then shows his very first restaurant and goes through each piece that makes it what it is which is simply “Sustainable”. Every piece of furniture and even the floor is reused and recycled, the air system is powered by wind and will heat or cool people down. Now when he explains this restaurant and his vision he has it all in a list from the top to bottom and that helps people understand clearly cause it’s organized. He refuses to allow anything to go to waste that comes out of his restaurant and he doesn’t even have to explain himself why but he allows us to understand why all going back to the potato. What makes his restaurants unique is his menus allow people to pick what they want but they get to choose how much of it they want of it, there is no limit. He often emphasizes that he is simply not trying to get rid of waste, but he wants to reduce the amount of waste there is because you really can’t get rid of waste. He puts all the waste into a machine and that turns it into compost which he actually uses and stores in his garden, therefore he truly does
reuse everything. The best part of his TedTalk is how he engages with the audience by making
jokes or the way he will state things will make the audience crack up, that shows people he
isn’t just this serious person but allows people to get more into it and he makes it fun. He was
telling a story how he put a “bunch of compost in the wormerie and they all died and he says he
has some heavy karma coming for him”. The most important thing is with his argument he
doesn’t come off as rude and he stands on both sides because he makes a lot of different points
that have to do with why he can understand people think this is absurd or pointless. Potts next
restaurant is an electrical restaurant called Waterhouse. It runs on hydroelectricity and that means
that the whole thing is powered,heated and ran all by water. His goal is to make a total of five
restaurants based on the chinese medicine acupuncture specialties, so far he has water, wood and
he is working on fire and then there is metal and earth to come. He truly does a great deal
explaining through each restaurant and how they work and function amazing, and the way he
presents them you don’t even have any questions to ask because he answers them all for you by
not leaving any detail out on how everything functions works and he never fails to reassure
everyone why he is doing this. His last project he discusses with everyone is a sustainable
supermarket and he is honest with everyone by stating that “it is his baby, and it is hurting real
bad”. He lets the audience understand that people who really get these restaurants/supermarket is
people who think the same way he does. He really tries to get the audience to understand how
important it is to have a sustainable supermarket which is nonprofit, his restaurants where he
understands they may not have the most comfortable chairs but the good in what you’re doing.
He would be a great teacher because of how confident he is about this, he always says that he
will make it happen there are no doubts. That is extremely important, because people can take
from this that you should be positive if you have a vision do not give up you can do it. It takes a
lot of confidence and knowledge which he has in all of this and that is why he wants to introduce
it to a broader spectrum of people. His point is that he wants to get this out where there is a social
disconnect between people and food and his whole vision explains why that is. My whole
attitude and thought on this has been changed so I am sure the audience can feel the same way.
It was great and very educational and persuading.