JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Each week, we team up with the Blue Zones Project Jacksonville to share recipes and find restaurants with healthy options to make the city a better place.
European Street Cafe is the first multi-location restaurant to partner with Blue Zones.
It’s a local restaurant filled with history.
The European Street Cafe in San Marco has been a community staple for 40 years.
Owner Andy Zarka said his restaurant has tasty options for everyone -- from meat eaters to vegans.
“All of the locations we have are predominately walkable, bikeable areas. That’s something that we’ve done by design in the 40 years we’ve been doing this. We’ve always striven to have a menu that has options for every dietary restriction. Couples that come in, ones gonna want meat, the others not gonna want meat, we’ve got you covered,” Zarka said.
And they can all enjoy it at what he calls the community table.
“After Hurricane Irma in 2017, we had to completely rebuild this location. We saw how the San Marco neighborhood and really the city of Jacksonville really fostered a community. We were seeing this concept in other places and thought it was something that we wanted to embrace,” he said.
Zarka is also embracing a partnership with the Blue Zones Project, highlighting healthier choices on the cafe’s menu.
That includes this falafel wrap made by Kitchen Manager Sean Barry.
Barry spreads homemade hummus on a piece of flatbread, followed by an herb salad known as tabbouleh. He then adds the falafel before wrapping the flatbread and pairing it with an apple and a pickle.
The Middle Eastern-inspired veggie patty wrap is one of the many healthy items on the menu that Zarka says includes family recipes from his native Lebanon.
It’s one of the reasons he says teaming up with the Blue Zones Project to promote a healthier lifestyle made sense for all of his restaurant’s locations.
“Simple things that we’ve learned from them that we take that next step. We’ve taken salt off the table. We’ve taken the sugar caddies off the tables. We were worried about some pushback. It hasn’t been a problem. People know that they don’t need those things. The food is already well seasoned,” Zarka said.
The official launch of European Street Cafe’s partnership with Blue Zones is April 3.