GRO stakes out raw-food niche
Igor Rakuz didn't like what he'd become.
The Boston native with a degree in music business was a club promoter, unhappy that his weight had topped out at 196 pounds, and along with not eating right he had become addicted to smoking.
"I got fed up with it. I felt like I was dying," Rakuz said.
"I started growing my own food and eating well and buying from farmers," he said.
Rakuz also gave up smoking, stumbled onto a whole food diet and became a vegan for a year. Now he's taken that personal journey a step further, opening what is believed to be Maine's first raw-foods cafe. He not only serves up the nutrition he credits with changing his life but a steady diet of information, community organizing around food issues and grassroots activism.
Even by Portland food-community standards, where politically tinted issues like buying locally and using only tapwater are routinely part of the culinary context, GRO (It stands for "grassroots organic" grassroots organic juicebar/cafe/chocalatier) takes things a step further.
Inside walls bear messages about freedom and raw-foods philosophy. One quote reads: "Food Sovereignty: The ability of any group of people to define, create and distribute their food and water independently."
The menu proclaims: "The unique GRO community is a center for nourishment and education, with an intense focus on permaculture (an ecological approach to designing a community), nutrition and public policy," states the GRO menu. "We think food is more than sustenance; it's a symbiotic relationship we share with the earth."
Literature abounds, including handouts about an anti-fluoridation campaign; a five-page missive about the "Codex Alimentarius" world food code, which asserts United Nations and corporate control of the globe's food supplies; and a public hearing announcement in support of LD 1028, Maine legislation calling for municipal reform to deny corporations constitutional privileges.
A back room at the restaurant is equipped with a mushroom-growing chamber and a wooden rack for raising wheatgrass and tomato starts. Ultimately, Rakuz said he hopes to convert the room into a lounge where people can hang out. He plans to stage educational displays and to host meetings.
Preaching what he practices
At the food bar, customers can order a tera burger — a burger made with sunflower seeds, kamut, carrot and paprika, or the sea veggie shiitake collard roll — a collard green wrap served with sesame-ginger dipping sauce. Rakuz and his cafe have found support among the local organic-food community.
"Everyone has come out of the woodwork to help," said Rakuz, showcasing the cafe, now two months in operation at its 437 Congress Street location. Last week, he put up his exterior sign.
GRO as a concept isn't just supposed to be a gathering place — its ambition is to be a lifestyle model.
"I'm trying to create a place that can set an example to the rest of the community," Rakuz said.
Organic fair-trade coffee and a variety of smoothies and desserts likewise tap ingredients not likely found in your traditional restaurant. There's fresh ground flax and local bee pollen that can be added to smoothies. Wheat-free croutons and hand-picked mushrooms are mingled with red peppers, avocado and onion for a house salad.
"The first thing we do is we go to the farmers market to get our food," Rakuz said. "Keeping it local is our first and major priority."
Finding his niche
While planning to launch, Rakuz said he struggled to find a place to eat in Portland that satisfied his strict standards of organic-only, raw food that's locally produced and not genetically modified or grown with a large carbon footprint. He gravitated to the North Star Music Cafe and sampled from its natural-foods menu.
Anna Maria Tocci, one of the owners of North Star Music Cafe, remembered Rakuz coming in and eating organic salads.
"It's been fun watching him get a shop together. I feel like his business is even more extreme on being raw foods, and catering to a real niche market. We do a lot of healthy foods, but we still have turkey and cookies and sugar," she said.
Local organic business owners tend to support each other, Tocci said, and the same applied to GRO.
"It's awesome to have that kind of place in Portland where it's even more specialized," Tocci said, predicting that GRO fills a demand in Portland.
"From the people who have come in here and knowing Igor and knowing his philosophies, there are a lot of people in Portland where that will really resonate," she said.
GRO may have raised the bar for when it comes to eco-friendly sensibilities. Menus are printed on recycled paper with soy ink; flatware is corn plastic; the cafe won't serve tapwater owing to concerns about fluoride in the municipal water supply; and even the walls were painted using clay-based paint that required a painstaking search for a supplier, Rakuz said. (Serving tapwater has become a restaurant issue, with Portland joining New York and San Francisco in formally endorsing tapwatere over bottled water; more than a dozen local restaurants serve only tapwater as their H2O. On Monday at 7 p.m., GRO is hosting the second organizational meeting for FLOW, or Fluoride Leave Our Water, a local grassroots campaign aiming to end water fluoridation in the city.)
Rakuz is planning to open a 100-foot greenhouse Sunday at Millbrook Garden Center along Route 302 in Westbrook. He invited the public to check it out but said there won't be produce for sale right now. The goal is for GRO to supply its own ingredients and cultivate "super foods" from the Andes and Himalayas, Rakuz said. Goji berries, coconut oil, maca (a root vegetable related to the turnip) and hemp seed are four anchor ingredients.
"We want to grow our own food and work with local farmers," Rakuz said.
Raw foods philosophy
Chef Andrew Borne said he keeps in mind how raw ingredients will mix to produce different flavors.
"It's the same as regular cooking but you have to think about what you can use that's raw and fresh," he said.
Goji berries are touted for their 18 amino acids and 21 minerals. They are high in antioxidants and have "strong free-radical scavenging properties," according to GRO literature.
Coconut oil is rich in "medium-chain triglycerides" that can be converted into energy by the human body, GRO notes.
"Maca curtails the effects of stress by helping the adrenal glands regenerate," according to a GRO brochure. "Maca possesses the building blocks for serotonin and so reduces sugar cravings that are caused by stress."
Hemp is promoted as "the best source of protein in the plant kingdom," boosting the immune system and repairing soft-tissue damage, according to GRO literature.
Nothing is heated over 112 degrees, which, according to the menu, preserves enzymes and uses less energy.
"When you heat most foods past 112, you've lost 80 percent of the nutrients those foods can deliver to you, and you lose 80 percent of the fuel that it took to deliver it to you, the sweat equity that it took to produce it," Rakuz said.
"It's not that our food is cold, we have a lot of warm things, our crepes are warm out of the oven, but our oven doesn't go above 112 degrees," he said.
Beyond the types of food served, Rakuz said GRO thrives off the interaction of customers.
"This place always has a good energy in here," he said.
So far, business has been brisk, Rakuz said, and he looks forward to building.
"The place is still a work in progress," Rakuz said.
GRO is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. The phone is 541-9119.
