VSAG congratulates our client Sâuçá for nabbing first place in The Great Emerging Franchise Challenge.  The award comes with a capital grant for services to help the business launch a national franchise program.

Sâuçá  is the globally-inspired mobile restaurant fleet that serves eponymous sâuçás– flatbread wrapped sandwiches filled with international ingredients–across Washington, DC.  The unique brand is much more than a food truck, though – it combines food, travel, music, design, technology and fun with delicious results.  With the help of this award, Sâuçá will soon become a fun fixture on the streets of every major American city.

VSAG worked closely with owner Farhad Assari to develop and manage the Sâuçá concept.  We hungrily look forward to the day that we can get our sâuçá fix no matter where we are in the country.

Congrats, Sâuçá team!

Award presented to Founding Farmers General Manager Paul Chin-Fong by Mayor Adrian Fenty

Founding Farmers, the Greenest Restaurant in Washington, DC, was today named as one of only two restaurants in The District to receive the Mayor’s Environmental Excellence Award in 2010. The annual awards recognize outstanding businesses and organizations for their environmental stewardship, innovative best practices, pollution prevention and resource conservation.

“Founding Farmers was designed and built to minimize its impact on the environment through our mission of sustainable practices like recycling and composting, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and local sourcing whenever possible,” said Dan Simons, Principal of VSAG, the high caliber restaurant consulting and management firm for Founding Farmers. “We are honored to be recognized for our dedication to the environment and strive to lead the restaurant industry by example of responsible practices.”

The awards presentation took place at the K St. location of Busboys & Poets on Thursday, August 5. Read the Founding Farmers award-winning case study for more detail on the restaurant’s environmental practices.

Founding Farmers is the first and only restaurant in The District to receive LEED certification to date. Just six months after opening, the restaurant was named a Certified Green Restaurant™ by the Green Restaurant Association for daily operational practices to reduce waste, and in April 2009, the restaurant was awarded LEED Gold Certification status from the US Green Building Council (USGBC), for the commercial interior design of the restaurant.

Founding Farmers focuses on sourcing food and products that have been grown and harvested through sustainable agricultural methods, from the meats, poultry and produce, to the beverages, spirits and wines.

…and silver, and bronze!  Congratulations – and cheers–to The Covey Restaurant & Brewery in Ft. Worth, Texas for their recent win of six awards for their incredible crafts beers at the 2010 Los Angeles International Commercial Beer Competition.  Brewmaster Jamie Fulton’s own recipes garnered the two gold, two silver and two bronze medals for the handcrafted beers.

The six medal-winning beers (out of 8 entered by Mr. Fulton) recognized by the judges include: The Covey’s Texas Blonde and Aduro Porter scored gold medals in the German-Style Kölsch/Köln-Style Kölsch and Coffee Flavored Beer categories, respectively; Silver medal winners in the Vienna-Style Lager and Imperial/Double Red Ale categories were The Covey’s Vienna Lager and Fritz Reserve Imperial Amber.  Bronze medals went to The Covey’s Flemish Pale in the Belgian and French-Style Ale category and to “100” in the Belgian-Style Strong Ale category.

Says VSAG Principal Dan Simons, “What Jamie has achieved with his craft brews is remarkable, not only as a single producer or as a restaurateur and brewer, but as a savvy businessman that recognized the incredible growth in the craft beer segment of the restaurant industry.  We’re very fortunate to be working with him and The Covey – and his beers are fantastic!”   Read all the hoppy details…

VSAG client Founding Farmers has been recognized by Mid-Atlantic Construction, a bi-monthly magazine for the regional construction industry, as the 2009 Retail Project of the Year. Projects were recognized for achieving the goals set forth by the project team, overcoming significant challenges, adopting innovative approaches, executing exception design and craftsmanship, and displaying strong teamwork. The jury was made up of architects, engineers, and general contractors.

The winning projects are featured in the Winter 2009/ 2010 issue of Mid-Atlantic Construction magazine.

Recently the new VSAG.com web site was named to the “Best of the Web” in the top Business > Business to Business> Hospitality Industry > Consulting web site category.   Building a good web site is like building a good restaurant – there are many components that must work in conjunction with each other for successful functionality, operations, content and aesthetics.   We’re proud to be recognized for the work we’ve put into evolving our site and for knowing we were able to accomplish those goals.   

VSAG is proud to share that DC’s Greenest Restaurant Founding Farmers has been featured in Hotel Magazine’s annual Gold Key Hospitality Awards as a finalist for the 2009 Casual Dining Restaurant Awards, as one of 3 international projects (and the only one in the U.S.!) that were nominated in this category.

The Gold Key Hospitality Awards are hosted by Hotel Magazine and Interior Design Magazine and recognizes design firms who have done the most innovative work on hospitality renovations or new builds from around the globe, for hotels, restaurants and spas. Congratulations to CORE and the whole restaurant team for Founding Farmers for a great showing and for garnering international attention. Read the rest of this entry »

VSAG sends a shout out to Yellow + Blue, the eco-friendly, very tasty, tetra-pak (AMAZING wine in a box!) purveyor and friend of Founding Farmers and Farmers & Fishers restaurants, for their feature in Fast Company this week.   Their interesting white Torrontes, Cafayate, Argentina 2008 and the 2005 Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina are two of the restaurant’s top sellers by the glass, and no surprise—they’re delicious, great pairings for many items on the menus.   From harvest to packaging to the glass, these are all certified organic wines that are stored in environmentally friendly packaging. It’s the kind of thing VSAG loves in its work on bar & lounge menus and green restaurant operations.  Here’s to drinking green!

VSAG is very excited about Founding Farmers’ new iPhone App—it’s a great way to reach out to the guests and to keep the restaurant on the cutting edge, important parts in our work in restaurant management and restaurant social media.

Be among the first iPhone users that have discovered the fun, convenient way to see what’s new on the menu, make reservations and even choose a wine with dinner with the new Founding Farmers restaurant app.   This FREE app is available through the iTunes App Store, and Founding Farmers is among just a few restaurants that have seen the fun in reaching out to guests in a new way.  Even TIME magazine has noticed! Read the rest of this entry »

On July 27, VSAG’s Chief Mixologist Jon Arroyo (as well as Founding Farmers‘ and Farmers & Fishers) participated in the DC Craft Bartenders’ Guild “Rickey” contest held at Bourbon. Here’s a snapshot of Jon’s entry….and you can get the full story here.

On April 22nd, Founding Farmers and VSAG celebrated the official award and certification of the restaurant as LEED® Gold by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).   With this award, Founding Farmers is the first USGBC certified restaurant of any type in the District of Columbia, and the first full-service, upscale-casual LEED Gold restaurant in the entire United States. Read the rest of this entry »