Sage Karma Kitchen brings healthy eats and good energy to downtown Willoughby (photos)

WILLOUGHBY, Ohio — “What goes round, comes round.”

The phrase is the motto of Sage Karma Kitchen, a brand new restaurant in Willoughby that opened on July 2. Contained in the restaurant at 4051 Erie Road, the phrases wrap across the ceiling above the eating room’s bar.

Teanna Vitantonio stated she got here up with the tagline after she and her husband Dan Vitantonio acquired the property in February, and needed to work with the area’s spherical bar high. (Beforehand, the area was Nickelby’s Roundbar.)

“We form of needed to base it off of the spherical bar in a way, so our tagline, ‘What goes round, comes round’ — that translated effectively right into a circle. Then got here the circle lighting fixtures, then the round chandelier,” Teanna stated. “Every little thing simply fell into place.”

Teanna and Dan each determined to open Sage Karma Kitchen as a method to fulfill their very own eating tastes and to supply gluten-free and vegan-friendly choices in Willoughby. (Teanna is each vegan and gluten-free.) They teamed up with enterprise companions Jim Tekavec, John Frech and Bob Roberts to get the enterprise up and working.

The Vitantonios leaned into their love of yoga, realized by means of Dan’s sister, together with their love of karma, when designing the format of Sage Karma Kitchen. A sage stick usually burns close to the entrance door, giving a lightweight scent of incense within the hallway. A mural depicting the 12 Legal guidelines of Karma fills a wall in a facet eating room.

It’s about giving good vitality, Teanna stated — creating a peaceful, relaxed, joyful ambiance for diners to get pleasure from.

Sage Karma Kitchen stands other than Vitantonios’ different restaurant, Tavern Six in Kirtland. There, the menu focuses on heartier dishes, nonetheless emphasizing wholesome choices and recent components however together with extra consolation meals.

“We’ve had Tavern Six open for six and a half years now, and it’s been doing very effectively,” Teanna stated. “For us, due to the way in which that we eat, we don’t wish to go someplace the place we’re consuming frozen meals, or consuming issues which might be reheated. We each have been within the restaurant enterprise for some time and we simply thought, let’s make every thing good, and let’s make every thing from our place. Then that simply translated into this idea. This idea is extra us.”

Sage Karma Kitchen grew out of Tavern Six, even bringing over a chef from the primary restaurant to design the brand new restaurant’s menu. Chef Chad Scott crafted distinctive bowls, flatbreads, sandwiches and entrees that may attraction to each diners with weight-reduction plan restrictions, and meat-eaters.

Scott beforehand labored in a Center Japanese restaurant in Pittsburgh after graduating from the Le Cordon Bleu Institute in 2007. Then, he moved again and began working at Tavern Six.

When he had the chance to tackle Sage Karma Kitchen, Scott determined it will be a novel expertise to shift away from meat-based dishes.

“I like my beef,” Scott stated. “After just a few years of being again, it gave the impression of this might need been extra of a problem, to provide you with these recipes.”

Common gadgets on the menu embrace the tremendous inexperienced salad (considered one of Dan’s favorites), the tempura-battered avocado, candy potato skins and grass-fed burgers. A vegan mac-and-cheese supplies a plausible tacky texture, whereas the fried brussels sprouts burst with taste from its port discount sauce.

Each few days, Teanna crafts a vegan, gluten-free cupcake for the dessert menu, which she additionally has accomplished at Tavern Six. She stated that for six and a half years, she’s by no means repeated a taste mixture.

Together with the meals, Sage Karma Kitchen gives a wine choice and freshly made craft cocktails, additionally emphasizing wholesome selections with freshly made easy syrups and an avoidance of added synthetic components.

“I really feel like in some sense of the phrase, we’re educating those who vegan and consuming cleanly is okay, which is form of the entire objective of being right here, in addition to having a spot the place we might exit to eat one time,” Teanna stated.

Although Sage Karma Kitchen may be very vegan pleasant, a lot of its dishes can incorporate meat if the shopper needs.

“All of the bowls begin off vegan and gluten-free, however then if you’d like, you possibly can add a steak to it, you possibly can add rooster, you possibly can add salmon — however you may also add a black bean quinoa patty or tofu or chickpea patty,” Teanna stated. “It speaks to everybody.”

To date, diners have been responding effectively to the idea, Teanna stated. So effectively, that the restaurant has introduced in repeat clients, returning for seconds.

“The 12 Legal guidelines of Karma have all the time spoken to me. There are various things that I feel middle with a connection to meals, to bringing individuals collectively,” Teanna stated. “Placing out good issues and placing out good meals for individuals makes them wish to come again.”

In spite of everything, what goes round, comes round.

Presently, Sage Karma Kitchen is open with restricted hours resulting from staffing limitations, open for dinner service Tuesdays by means of Fridays and all day Saturdays and Sundays. Homeowners hope to increase hours as soon as they rent extra workers.

Discover extra info at sagekarmakitchens.com.

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