100 taps at Michigan's craft beer crossroads

Sustainability - it isn't just a 14-letter word

We're serious about our role as conscientious business owners, constantly looking for ways we can be better stewards of our environment. We recycle or compost most of our waste, reducing the amount of trash going to landfills and incinerators by 90 percent. We also strive to source food and products from companies with similar commitments.

Doing this isn't easy. We train every employee to sort waste, including the packaging that food and other materials arrives in and the leftovers on your plate when you finish dining with us.

Instead of just dumping everything in one place, food waste is placed into our compost bin, along with our compostable paper products, used straws and other compostable items. We recycle almost everything we can't compost - cardboard boxes, cans, glass, plastic containers -- you name it. So what makes up the "other" 10 percent? Often it's made up of unmarked plastic wrappings, disposable gloves used by our kitchen staff when preparing food and garbage brought in by our employees and guests that can't be recycled.

Why do we do this? Well, take a look behind your average restaurant. There's often a big, overflowing garbage bin - almost everything bound for a landfill or an incinerator. We decided that had to stop. So we talked to our employees, did some research and developed our waste-reduction program. A lot of people said we were crazy, that it would cost too much. Once we understood how much waste we could divert or eliminate, we knew it would cost us too much not to do this.