The waffle cone on the Daily Green’s menu is what separates the restaurant from any other in town.
The concept provides patrons with the option to stuff fresh vegetables and other health foods into a waffle cone, served up regularly at Daily Green, where the restaurant owners like to do things differently.
Eddie Cromer, who prefers the title "master and chief," said he wants to be different.
“I want to make things you can’t get anywhere else,” the kitchen manager and part owner of the restaurant said.
Daily Green, a new lunch spot at 436 SE Second St., opened Aug. 12.
Teamwork and a mutual love for waffles are what inspired owners Cromer, John Arana and Adam Reinhard to create the waffle cone and other menu items like the falafel waffle.
Arana said they are still healthy options because nothing is deep-fried, and all of the ingredients that go into the waffle cones are fresh. They also serve vegan and gluten-free versions of the popular menu item.
“We felt that there was a need in Gainesville for the kind of food we wanted to provide,” Arana said. “It’s important for us to eat healthy food, and we feel it’s healthy for the environment. Organic food is produced in a more sustainable way.”
The restaurant offers 100-percent-fresh organic juices. Aside from the juice bar in Earth Origins, it is the only other fresh juice bar in Gainesville, Cromer said.
Arana said the uniqueness of the menu items — buffalo meat, waffle cones, cornbread waffles — and the fact that everything is made in house and from scratch are what set Daily Green apart from Designer Greens or Salad Creations.
Fernando Jaramillo, a 22-year-old UF telecommunication senior and a former Salad Creations employee, said his previous employer gets some of its dressings delivered and refrigerated. Others, like its raspberry vinaigrette, are made in-house daily. At Daily Green all of the dressings are guaranteed fresh.
Arana said starting the restaurant and getting it going has been a lot of work.
The owners have tried to create a place that will offer the healthy alternative a lot of people in Gainesville have been looking for.
“It’s brought the joys of creating a team of employees that work together to deliver (healthy foods) and start a little family,” Arana said.
Cromer said Daily Green is different because it’s not a chain restaurant. He said there are places that claim to be healthy but aren’t.
“Phonies,” he said.
A version of this story ran on page 10 on 10/17/2013 under the headline "Daily Green gives healthy consumers quirky, waffle-centric options"
Daily Green, a California-meets-Southern quick and friendly eatery, opened about three months ago. The restaurant replaced the former Louis' Lunch building.
