Lighthouse BK Sets the Standard for Responsible Dining
Building community through waste reduction
A piece by Matthew Gutierrez, contributing writer at The Climate Optimist
Naama Tamir grew up in Israel surrounded by healthy, delicious food prepared with love. As a child, she spent one day a week working on farms to plant and harvest tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cabbage, herbs, mushrooms, and asparagus. At home, her mother was an avid cook, leaving lasting impressions: Sharing a meal was how her family showed their love. Growing food, building a recipe, and sharing the final product became ingrained in Tamir’s identity.
A luxurious spread at Lighthouse BK
“We had a strong connection to nature,” she says. “As a family of Holocaust survivors, we had a connection and understanding of resources, and wanting to take care of them -- just being very mindful of consumption in general.”
Once she completed her mandatory military service in 2000, Naama left Israel for New York. She worked in restaurants and fell in love with the food industry, seeing it as a vehicle to fulfillment: feed others, make them happy, and bring them together over a meal. But she also noticed some of the troubling aspects of the industry, including over-salting, over-buttering – and, most notably, tons of wasted food.
When she worked at prominent restaurants and steakhouses in the 2000s, she recalls that bags of excess food piled up at the end of each night. There were no systems for waste, and nobody thought twice about what to do with all the surpluses. So, it got dumped in landfills.
Meanwhile, Naama and her brother, Assaf, were living together and formulating ideas for opening a restaurant of their own one day. It would be different from many of the restaurants they worked in, with warm, friendly service; delicious, local food from sustainable producers; and awareness for waste reduction through mindful ordering and composting. In 2011, their dream became reality when they opened Lighthouse BK, an airy, casual farm-to-table in Brooklyn serving modern Mediterranean local, fresh food, cocktails, and natural wine. Among the hits: Oysters are just $1 daily during Happy Hour.
Outside dining at the Lighthouse corner in Brooklyn
Recently, Naama sat with The Climate Optimist at her airy Williamsburg restaurant to discuss her food story, waste reduction, composting, and sustainable dining. According to the FDA, the U.S. wastes 30-40% of its food supply, approximately $200 billion annually. But Naama is setting a standard for how food establishments can play a role in how we think about sourcing, processing, and using leftovers creatively.
For instance: Lighthouse’s fresh produce comes from the Union Square Greenmarket. They pickle vegetables and dehydrate herbs. The oysters usually come from Fishers Island, off the coast of Connecticut; the grass-fed beef is sourced from small-scale farmers upstate; the free-range chicken comes from an organic live-poultry market in the city.
At the end of catering events, leftovers have been sent to Rethink, a nonprofit that provides to people living without food security. Oyster shells have gone to the Billion Oyster Project, by which they’re reintroduced as oyster reefs into the New York Harbor. A textile dyer from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, has collected discarded carrot tops, avocado pits, and beef skins, which she uses to stain fabric. Coffee grounds are morphed into cosmetics. Naama’s father makes the wine bottles, and the biodegradable wine corks are material for art and buoys. Patrons can take home leftovers in plant-based, compostable containers when the meal is over.
Here's the rest of our conversation with Naama. Enjoy!
How did the ideas for Lighthouse come together?
I came here over 20 years ago and came to love New York. I was a bubbly 20-year-old and New York was the most incredible place. My brother and I lived across the street and worked in restaurants. Our conversations were about how different the food system was from the one we knew at home.
How so?
In service, restaurants became so cool, servers would sometimes give an attitude: 'You're lucky to be here.' It didn't connect for us. We thought about how food is the primal act of love our mother gave. Restaurants are community builders, a beautiful place to be, especially in New York City, where it can be lonely and expensive. We needed something warm and welcoming.
Did you initially want a Mediterranean restaurant?
The idea had been in the works for years, initially, we thought we might open a coffee shop. We started a lot less ambitious. We wanted something appropriate for all the healthy diets that would make everyone feel welcome. Nobody had to apologize for how they ate.
How did the restaurants you worked in handle waste?
We worked in a few steakhouses and big restaurants, and the waste was terrible. And they weren't designed for this access. The menu had 11 kinds of mushrooms and potatoes.
From some more prominent restaurants, we saw that food isn’t separated. It all goes into the same place. Very little time is spent dealing with what can be done better on waste. It is all about profit.
But even working for some excellent restaurants, they would get the best produce and shave it down into something ridiculous. A beautiful carrot trimmed into just a little sliver. On the prep side, the separation side, anything not consumed in a day at a high-end restaurant goes to the garbage. The staff might eat some leftovers here and there, but so much is thrown out.
Stuff someone might have worked on for hours gets tossed. Nobody was considering an alternative or how to make that better. There were natural wines, conversations about how to make the cocktails better, and how to improve the service -- but the waste was not in that discussion.
When you opened Lighthouse, was sustainability a priority from the get-go?
Yes. Before we opened, we would experiment at home, making recipes to deal specifically with food waste. We had little names for them.
What are the top action items you'd give to someone running a restaurant to be a bit more mindful of waste?
Understand the business patterns so you can purchase properly, so you're throwing out less. That's No. 1. Then develop a system in place for that. Figure out how it will work best for your unique restaurant.
What is your composting campaign?
Pre-pandemic, we used to work with an organization called “Sure We Can” and they picked up our bottles and cans. We became their compost partner. We composted tons of food.
We have a good relationship with the (NYC) Parks Department -- we saw their composting machine a few years ago. We decided to do it ourselves. If we got a machine that could process more than we need, we could also compost food from neighboring restaurants and residential places. And we started to collect data, noticing that there's a huge rats and landfill problem here.
Interesting – so using compost to work together?
It’s about bringing people together over waste. It stops being wasted -- it becomes organic matter and fertilizer and fuel.
What is the crowdfunding campaign you’re running? How can people help?
These machines are expensive. So, anyone who contributes to the campaign receives 120% in Lighthouse credit. All the donations go into the composter. It loops in everything we love – community and local economy.
What does “Lighthouse” mean?
To be a beacon of light.
What do you believe is a restaurant's role in its community?
They all have different roles. Ours is a place for people to hang out, talk about art, collaborate, and listen to music. My brother and I talked about how we wanted a place where you could come with a friend, a brother, a date, or your parents, and you can eat a very modest meal on a modest budget, but you could also come and indulge and splurge. It's not for everyone, just something that is guilt-free. It’s good for your pocket and the planet and your soul.
That's beautiful. What else do you do to foster sustainability?
We keep as much as we can from landfills. I combine deliveries when I can, so a truck doesn't have to come here every week. Sustainability is a principle, it's the way we think about things. We use minimal packaging. We have one oyster farmer who delivers, so we keep the bags and reuse them.
Anything else you’d like to share with fellow Climate Optimists?
We are not anywhere near where I would love to see us, but it is just to make sure we are getting better and doing it with love, not anger. There isn't one model for sustainability. There are plenty of ways to solve sustainability and spread love through food.
Naama and Assaf Tamir
