This post is dedicated to the city of Mill Valley, CA. There is a lot of "green" going on in Mill Valley. This post features a few local businesses that are doing their part to help protect our environment and conserve our resources.
And for more on green cities, check out my friend Warren Karlenzig's site Green a City. Warren is also the co-author of How Green is Your City?
Now............. onto Mill Valley!
For starters, check out this video from ZDNet's The Green Enterprise which looks at green practices in the city of Mill Valley, such as a solar-powered pizzeria, an eco-friendly water treatment plant and a lumber program that re-uses wood from the city's fallen trees for bridge projects around town.
Stefano's Pizza has 26Kw worth of solar panels on their roof that provides all the power needed to make their great Pizzas! One reviewer said, "The pizza is about as close to New York style as you'll find in
southern Marin. Stefano's makes great pizza. They go light on the
sauce, but the ingredients are fresh and good."
One of my family's favorites is Small Shed Flatbreads. Small Shed Flatbreads features fresh and organic ingredients from local farmers and ranchers. In additional to the daily specials, our favorites include the Mad River (Shed-made sweet-maple fennel sausage, baked with oven-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, crimini mushrooms, mozzarella and grana cheese, herbs and tomato sauce), the Blue Bread (Queso DeValdeon Azul (Spanish), Prosciutto Americana, sliced tomato and herbs), and the Slamb (house made Moroccan style spicy lamb sausage, roasted eggplant, caramelized onion, feta, mozzarella, tomato sauce and herbs).
And let's not forget about the delicious salads which include The
Wedge (organic iceberg lettuce with creamy Pt. Reyes Blue cheese
dressing and pancetta), and the Bolinas Beat (fire roasted organic baby
beets, Star Route mixed greens, Humboldt Fog cheese, honey balsamic
reduction and pistachios). Small Shed Flatbreads also has a nice
selection of wines and beer (both on tap and in the bottle). The
restaurant is kid friendly, the service is great, and if you want to
grab some flatbreads and salads to go, they will cook the flatbreads
half way (in their wood-fired oven) for you to take home and finish. If
you are more ambitious, they even sell organic dough balls for you to
make your own flatbreads at home!
A new business just opened in Mill Valley is Illumigarden. Illumigarden, a Certified Bay Area Green Business, features LED landscape lighting. Why LEDs? Halogen and incandescent lights have big appetites for energy, and much of that power is wasted generating heat instead of light. LEDs save tons of energy, emit very little heat and no UV, are mercury-free, and can last a whopping 35,000 hours. Come check out Illumigarden's new outdoor space at 35 Corte Madera Ave. And if you have any CFL bulbs to recycle, you can drop them off at Illumigarden and they will take care of them!
Speaking of 35 Corte Madera Ave., the site of the original Smith and Hawken store, the newly renovated building by House Properties features solar panels on the roof, energy efficient lighting, and filtered water in the kitchen so we never have to buy bottled water! Last I checked, our electric bill showed a credit of almost $900!
I would like to feature more green cities on Frankly Green. Does your city have any interesting green businesses and/or initiatives? Write it up and you and your city could be featured on Frankly Green!
