Marie Catrib’s Restaurant Review

For Valentine’s Day this year, Laura wanted to have a lunch date at someplace new. After a little searching she found a place in East Grand Rapids called Marie Catrib’s – http://www.mariecatribs.com/ (link is no longer active). I checked it out online and figured out how to get there and we were off.

I can’t begin to tell you how much we were impressed by the place (didn’t bring a camera – should have). First thing that really struck me was the “local” flavor of the place. Not only is it locally owned and operated (like to promote the local economy) but most of their ingredients come from local farms within a “scooter trip” from the restaurant. This means they use local farms (and greenhouses in the winter) to get veggies, meat and cheeses. They even name the farms and offer summer tours so you can buy food for home from local places too. The building itself was eco-friendly – like the downtown YMCA and new Art Museum it is a LEED-certified building which includes a “live roof”, passive solar, zero-rain-water shed, etc. They have a wide variety of food and offer a lot of vegetarian and even vegan options, but also have home-made sausage (which I had in my Baker’s Omelet).

There were probably 4-5 groups ahead of us when we got there, so the wait was about 20-25 minutes. During this time they had a cool coffee bar (I had organic vanilla hazelnut) and they came by three times with cinnamon rolls and seasoned pita chips. During the wait we looked over the Saturday menu (http://www.mariecatribs.com/images/uploads/891Brunch0508.pdf (link is no longer active)) and the amazing amount of take-home food they had ready-to-go (we took home some rice, hummus, and a monster cookie – all vegan, all good).

We are already planning a return visit – this time with the children (looked quite kid-friendly and good options for them). I had never heard of the place before Laura mentioned it, but can’t figure out how we missed it.