Press Release
Green Obsession at Red Blazer
Restaurant leading an environmental revolution in the business
By: Ann Marie Timmins
Article Date: February 5, 2008
Source: The Concord Monitor
The Red Blazer's green revolution started with too many empties. Owner Sarandis Karathanasis was looking for a better - and safer - way to get rid of beer and wine bottles when he saw a glass crusher at a restaurant show in Chicago three years ago.
Karathanasis and his business partner, Pedro Godoi, bought the machine for $4,000 to tackle the 700 to 1,000 pounds of glass their place generates a week. The benefits were immediate, said Karathanasis. No more employees cutting themselves on broken glass en route to the Dumpster. And by crushing the bottles, the Blazer was able to start taking its glass to the city's recycling center and, thereby, stop paying a trash collector to haul it away.
In no time, the restaurant began saving $500 a month on trash fees. With that, a green obsession was born at the 500-seat Red Blazer on Manchester Street, one of Concord's oldest and biggest restaurants.
Karathanasis and Godoi now give their food scraps to Godoi's pigs. They've also begun recycling the restaurant's plastic and tin. (They were already recycling cardboard.) They are halfway through replacing the eatery's light bulbs with energy efficient alternatives. They're buying a second glass crusher for their bar.