The Aspen-based Restaurant Offers All Day Dining in a New Location on West 4th and Mercer Street
Spring Café Aspen quietly opened its New York City location in late September 2021, on the corner of West 4th Street and Mercer Street. Founded by entrepreneur Sabrina Rudin, Spring Café Aspen is a restaurant created with the goal of providing guests with organic and nourishing vegetarian food, using only 100% organic ingredients in its kitchen.
The Aspen import has health and wellness at the forefront, with everything from the restaurants being built with non-toxic materials to the filtered water powered by TENSUI. Spring Café Aspen offers breakfast, lunch and dinner with a special wine list curated by Drink Ramona founder Jordan Salcito, which features organic and biodynamic wines along with a hyper-local beer list.
“After such a challenging time for the restaurant industry, it feels good to be able to open our doors to New Yorkers,” says Sabrina Rudin, founder of Spring Café Aspen. “I created Spring Café as a reflection of the food and lifestyle that I have adapted, focusing on eating organic ingredients and a mix of vegan and vegetarian meals. Through our partnerships with organic farmers and purveyors, we take pride in offering a healthy food option. I hope that you feel the love and care that we have put into creating this restaurant and that it adds a little spring to your step.”
The menu at Spring Café Aspen features a mix of breakfast favorites and salads, bowls, sandwiches, composed entreés and snacks for lunch and dinner. New to the restaurant’s lunch and dinner menu are seasonal winter dishes including a rich Wild Mushroom Risotto; warm Winter Vegetable and Coconut Curry served with basmati rice; and Spaghetti Squash with tempeh bolognese. Additional highlights include the Superfood Salad with kale, fennel, carrot, celery, zucchini and red cabbage tossed with creamy parsley dressing; and the Tempeh Reuben with tomato, avocado, sauerkraut, peppers, onions and spring dressing on millet flax bread. The Juice Bar at Spring Café Aspen has a mix of 16 oz. juices such as the Carrot Hop with carrot, apple and ginger; the Beet Mine with watermelon, beet and lime; and the Green Light with kale, romaine lettuce, cucumber celery and pineapple.
We had a chance to chat with Sabrina Rudin about her passion behind the Spring Cafe Aspen mission. Here’s our Q&A with her:
Q: We love how you’re dedicated to providing guests with organic and nourishing vegetarian and vegan food and use only 100% organic ingredients in the kitchen. What has been the guest reaction to this? Are they often surprised, thankful, or even reluctant at all?
A: Many of our long-time guests, especially if they originally know about us from Aspen, have come to trust us for organic and nourishing vegetarian food, and they have been thrilled that we’ve maintained these principles and standards in NYC. Our newer guests sometimes come to us without knowing all of the care and detail that goes into our food and then will comment how healthy and rejuvenated they feel after a meal, this gives me the opportunity to talk to them about our ingredients they are often surprised and delighted to know that they are eating such healthy, thoughtfully prepared cuisine.
Q: How did you go about sourcing your partnerships with organic farmers and purveyors?
A: Many of the farmers and purveyors we work with at the restaurant are ones that I have had long- time personal relationships with, so it has been very special to work together. We especially love Lani’s Farm for our mixed salad greens, squash and other specialty greens. These are two farms that I’ve been shopping from and feeding my family with for so many years. Other purveyors we use like Barry’s Tempeh and Sami’s Bakery are small companies that I’ve been lucky enough to source from over the years, I try to find the cleanest, most delicious products and then see if we can work them into the menu at Spring, it’s important that I can trust the company and know that their ingredients and practices meet our standards.
Q: What is the general feedback from your guests? Do you get any out of towners that are impressed with your attention to detail in your ingredients and fresh approach? I know I am! I wish we had more places like this in Dallas, Texas, where I’m from.
A: We feel so grateful and lucky that the feedback from our guests has been so positive. I think now more than ever people are starting to really invest in their health and understand the benefits of nutrient-dense, plant based and delicious food and it’s so fulfilling to see people thoroughly enjoying and nourishing themselves with our food.
Q: What’s your favorite new vegan-friendly dish on the seasonal menu?
A: It’s so hard to choose but right now I absolutely love our wild mushroom risotto, it’s so decadent and warming and risotto is a dish I can rarely order off a menu because of all the dairy so I love that we have a vegan version for anyone who is looking to satisfy that craving!
While we there last month to celebrate Spring Cafe Aspen’s newest location in NYC, we got to try some of their most popular vegan options, including:
-Black bean soup with cashew cream and gluten free toast
-Roasted Crispy Brussels
-Tempeh Ruben 🥪 with Sabrina’s Spring Salad 🥗
-Seasonal Vegetable Coconut Curry
– Energy Bites: coconut macaroon, seeds & dried fruit ball, and chocolate date ball with their vegan-friendly chai latte and drip coffee ☕️ 👌🏻
Spring Café Aspen is located at 14 West 4th Street in New York City. The restaurant is open daily from 8AM-9PM and seats 50 guests inside and offers 28 outdoor seats. Spring Café Aspen also offers catering and private events.
When in NYC, Spring Cafe Aspen is a must visit for unique, plant-forward eats! 🌱
Website: www.springcafeaspen.com
Instagram: @springcafeaspen
