So now that we’ve covered our favorite local places to eat and drink, here’s a list of our other local favorite businesses in no particular order.

Stinkweeds - Best indie record store in the Valley.

Souvia - Cute tea accessories

ASU Art Museum Shop - The best gifts you will find in the valley.

Desert Botanical Garden - One of the world’s finest collections of desert plants

Judy’s Body Waxing - Judy’s Body Waxing & Harmonic Healing Center

Dr. Warwick - Chiropractor

Elijah Aller - Designs and makes flameworked glass. Beautiful!

The Back Rub Company - The Valley’s Leader in On-Site Corporate Chair Massage.

JessieBell Designs - Artwork inspired by the natural environment around us. Organic t-shirt screening.

Beads Galore - All your beading needs.

aka Green - Green Building supplies. Head here instead of Home Depot or Lowes.

Favorite local non-profits:

Hero’s Quest 2008 - Raising money for the 100 Club. The mission of the 100 Club of Arizona is to provide financial assistance to families of public safety officers and firefighters who are seriously injured or killed in the line-of-duty, and to provide resources to enhance their safety and welfare.

Arizona Animal Welfare League - The largest and oldest no-kill shelter in Arizona

Rescue a Golden of Arizona - Awesome golden retriever rescue group. We’ve had three great dogs from this group.

Local First Arizona - Supporting Arizona’s local business.

Independents week is this week and is a national event to promote local businesses across the country. Here in Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is supporting this cause and has declared June 30 - July 6 as independents week! Support your local economy and its uniqueness by making an extra effort to shop locally this week.

Why support local business? Check out this list of reasons from Local First Arizona:

• For every two jobs national retailers bring to a community, three jobs are lost as a result of local businesses closing down.
• When you shop locally-owned businesses, your money is re-circulated over and over and creates up to 75% more tax revenue to our community and state.
• Independent businesses raise the standard of living in your community because they take their profits and buy products and services from other local businesses, thus creating more and more tax revenues needed for the community to thrive.
• Millions of dollars of tax revenue subsidies handed to chains by financially-starved local governments drain even more tax revenue from our community and state.
• Blighted empty shopping areas are created in your community when chain stores re-locate to a more lucrative shopping center, or leave altogether. Literally hundreds of big stores are abandoned each year across the United States.
• Independent businesses are unique enterprises that contribute to the character of our community by offering a more diverse selections of goods and services.
• Independent businesses provide meaningful service with a personal touch. It matters to them that you are satisfied and will come back again.
• Carefully planned predatory pricing practices have allowed national chains to establish virtual monopolies as they drive local competition out of business. And then they raise their prices.

Take the pledge to support local business this week and pick up your golden ticket to save 20% at participating locations. No matter where you are in the country this is a great week to support local business and help keep your money local and your neighborhood unique.

Look forward to my list of recommended local businesses coming later this week. Until then see what some other Arizonan’s favorite local spots are here.

We previously wrote about PC911’s plans to expand to Arizona here and now that they are here we decided to pay them a visit. In many ways PC911 is a typical mobile computer repair company, they provide in home residential computer repair services, business services such as network installs, phone systems, maintenance plans, and surveillance systems. What sets them apart is their commitment to reducing their environmental impact. I’ve worked for a mobile computer repair company before and it involves A LOT of driving. In sprawling cities like Phoenix it is easy to drive 100 miles or more a day criss crossing around to different homes and businesses. This is the biggest environmental impact businesses like this have and is where PC911 works the hardest to reduce. They do this by buying used diesel ambulances and converting them to run on waste vegetable oil. Running a vehicle on veggie oil is cleaner than running running petroleum diesel, provides a local use for a waste product, and reduces demand for foreign oil. This also saves the business a lot of money in fuel costs. The $1200 install for the conversion is paid off after only 10 tanks of fuel. Another way PC911 works to reduce their impact is by recycling as much of their waste as possible. They have opted to pay for a recycling dumpster behind their office to accommodate this. The owner of PC911, Chad Stone, also runs his personal vehicles on waste veggie oil, he has a VW TDI and 1984 Mercedes.

We contacted Chad about taking a tour of their office here in Phoenix and met up with him on a Monday morning. They have a very typical office except for the fact that their garage has 4 ambulances stuffed in it. Chad popped the hood of one of them and started telling us about the WVO systems they have. They use Lovecraft conversions which are single tank systems. Typically with these systems you have two tanks, one with diesel or biodiesel to start the vehicle and than another tank with the WVO to switch over to once the vehicle is warmed up. WVO needs to be warmed up to thin it out to a viscosity closer to diesel fuel so that it can be more easily injected into the engine. Lovecraft systems preheat the oil in the fuel filter and use a booster pump to get rid of the need for two tanks. Most of the people I’ve talked to recommend the two tank system, but Chad says they’ve never had any problems. Here’s a video of Chad cold starting one of their ambulances after it has sat unused over the weekend.

PC911 collects and filters the oil themselves. They first pre-screen the oil into a drum and then it is forced through a sock filter which I believe filters it down to 10 microns. Here’s a video of Chad filtering some used oil and then filling up a ambulance with it. At the time of our visit they hadn’t secured any sources of waste oil in Phoenix, but are working on that.

Basically that is it, these systems are pretty simple overall and easy to operate. Thinking of running waste veggie oil in your car? Sure it is a free source of fuel, but you should also know there can be downsides. Systems improperly installed, or bad oil, especially oil with water in it can cause catastrophic damage to your engine. Check out this horror story of one man’s journey with running his VW TDI on waste oil. Not to end with a downer, but be sure you know what you could be running into if you decided to go down this path.

If you need any computer services we’d highly recommend PC911 for their high quality computer work and their commitment to the environment. They are currently located in Las Vegas Nevada and Phoenix Arizona, perhaps one day in a city near you.

PC911
Las Vegas:
702-309-1911
PC911lv.com
Phoenix
602-353-0911
PC911az.com

Being more efficient and less wasteful is great for saving money and with rising energy prices businesses are all in. This among other sustainability topics is what was discussed at the Arizona Chamber of Commerce Sustainability Summit at the Hyatt Regency in Phoenix on Friday.

“Sustainability is about making money,” said Ed Fox, vice president and chief sustainability officer for APS. “Sustainability is a business strategy.”

He encouraged business executives to “stop thinking about sustainability as a green movement,” because that “makes the finance guys think of additional costs.”

Instead, he said APS encourages employees to look for ways to save the company money, like the idea to shut down energy-wasting computer monitors when they’re not in use. The company borrowed the idea from a local school that was pinching pennies.

[Arizona Republic]

The Center Bistro
21 East 6th Street, Suite 114
Tempe, AZ 85281 • 480.491.5591
- Hours of Operation -
Sun-Thurs 11am-10pm
Fri-Sat 11am-Midnight

Increasingly in the downtown Tempe area surrounding the ASU campus the charm of small local restaurants and businesses is being wiped away for a more corporate, polished, and I would argue, cold and unwelcoming feel. I have walked past The Center many times with its great location near my preferred parking garage and Borders. I ignorantly dismissed it as another new kid on the block taking up space in the area that used to be home to some of my favorite little mom and pop places now replaced by chains. Don’t let its new brick exterior and chain store neighbors fool you, this place is locally owned, has all the charm of its local predecessors with some artsy-polish and serves Earth-friendly organic dishes.

We decided to go there on a whim, wanting to try something new and environmentally friendly. Not knowing what to expect and seeing their prices were moderately steep we got gussied up and headed to Tempe. Their menu is vegan/vegetarian friendly allowing for substitutions of tofu for any of the meat dishes. They specialize in beautiful salads and sandwiches, vegan desserts and some darn good smoothies! As we were seated we were each greeted with a shot of their strawberry-peach-mango smoothie, or ‘Karmic Colada.’ It was so great we ordered a full sized version along with the banana-blueberry-spirulina. The banana one was far sweeter and I liked knowing I was getting all of the nutrition from the spirulina but while it was really yummy I preferred the strawberry. I was so impressed with their smoothies I will make a point of returning just for them.

Even their drinks are organic! I had some organic iced green tea that was quite good while James had an organic pear cider. They had a small but good looking selection of teas I would like to try at some point, including a spiced chai (both green and black), mint, breakfast black, and a couple of good looking greens. They also had fresh lemonade, Mexican coffee, and a wide variety of organic beers and wines.

Our meal started with the baked organic coconut tofu and blackened organic tempeh tower. Not only was this sculpturesque creation beautiful, it was delicious, nutritious and environmentally sound! Reminiscent of Jamaican jerk-spices with a twist of grapefruit-yuzu, this kicked off our special occasion with style and taste. Next up was the main meal… after smoothies and protein packed appetizer we were pretty full but the incredible presentation and scent was more than enough to lure us into gluttony.

Their miso soup is vegan and fantastic. Not too “fishy” from the vitamin-packed sea weed but just right. The salad, with its fresh baby greens, artfully spiraled carrots and sprouts in an amazing ginger-soy dressing was too good to be true!

I ordered the organic wild mushrooms sandwich with spring lettuce, fresh dill, organic olive oil and garlic, vegan cream cheese and power green pesto. The dill made this baby something really special, subtle so it didn’t knock your socks off but it acted as the perfect unexpected flavor that made me think for just a moment - what is it that is so great about this?! Dill!!

James substituted tofu in place of beef on the free range organic roast beef sandwich with fresh organic beets, organic spring lettuce, house mayo, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar reduction, with Mainland Farms white cheddar. Who would think to put beets on a sandwich? It looked amazing and James was very pleased with his choice. Aron, James’ brother, ordered the salmon sandwich, wild salmon filet with organic heirloom tomatoes, daikon radish shreds and horseradish black sesame aioli. He was also quite pleased. 3 for 3!

As if we were not stuffed enough…. they have organic vegan cheesecake!! Now how often do you have this option? It would be a sin to deny such an amazing treat, right? It was, just as all of their dishes, beautifully presented and tasty as could be with a lighter texture than a conventional cheesecake. They also had other vegan dessert options so I will certainly be back for.

What makes The Center a green place to go? They are mostly organic, so what? When we eat organic foods not only are we avoiding ingesting the potentially harmful pesticides and herbicides that go into conventional crops, we are supporting sustainable agricultural practices. Organic farming promotes better treatment of the soils which means they will be healthy and supportive of tomorrow’s crops for our kids and theirs. It is also important that they have a focus on vegan options. The meat and dairy industries, particularly from the factory farming practices due to their highly concentrated population of critters, contribute a huge amount of methane (a green house gas) not to mention the requirement for huge amounts of water, land, and crops to feed them (and the water and land required for those crops!) and the fuel to truck them, living and dead, across the country. (Click here to read “Rethinking the Meat Guzler” from the NY Times for more info) There are controversies around soy at the moment regarding rain forest being cleared for lucrative soy crops, however, those are being resolved and the U.S. is the number one producer of soy.

I can’t say enough about the Center. The artwork was beautiful, the food was fantastic, and the service was amazing. I will be back soon and encourage anyone wanting to support a local green restaurant to head over there as soon as you have the chance!

[The Center Cafe/Bistro]