Do you like Bicycles, Portland, Good Food, and Midtown....then this is for you!

Reno is getting in on a little Portland food action!  Look for the Laughing Planet Cafe to open this May.  More below from the Reno Rebirth Blog.

Reno Rebirth: Healion readies new restaurant in Midtown Reno

"Midtown's on fire": Tim Healion talks about busin...: Tim Healion is aiming for a spring opening for Laughing Planet Cafe in Reno's Midtown district. Here, he talks about the location.

Written by

Yvonne Beasley

Tim Healion is turning this former law office on Tahoe Street into a Laughing Planet Cafe, with a planned opening of May 1. With Healion are Fenway, front, and Omar Little. / Tim Dunn / RGJ

When Portland's Laughing Planet Café opens a Midtown Reno location this spring, a seasoned Reno restaurateur and organizer will be at the helm.  Tim Healion aims to open the eatery in May at 650 Tahoe Street, in the same neighborhood as Sup and the Reno Public House.

The onetime owner of the Deux Gros Nez café, which closed in 2006, also ran the Tour de Nez bicycle race for 20 years.  The café menu includes burritos, salads, soups and smoothies with a focus on locally sourced ingredients whenever possible.

"The stuff they're doing is the stuff we did years ago at the Deux, as much as we could. Locally sourced food was carrots and potatoes back then but now there's all kinds of stuff being grown," Healion said Tuesday.

Interior construction is starting nearly from scratch in the small brick building, which once housed legal offices.

“Today we busted concrete to bring new electrical service to the building,” Healion said.
Word-of-mouth momentum ramped up just hours after Healion changed his Facebook employment status Monday to “Started working at Laughing Planet Café.”

Facebook commenters cheered "yahooooooooooo- finally!!!!!" and "Back in the saddle!" at his announcement.  Healion isn't worried about joining a busy restaurant district in Midtown.

"What's cool about this neighborhood is there's a lot of stuff that's already going on," he said. "The more you have, the more people come here and the more there's opportunities."

The Laughing Planet chain is owned by Franz Spielvogel, who once worked for Healion at Deux Gros Nez.

"I was Tim's employee for three and a half years and a customer for almost eight," Spielvogel said from Portland on Tuesday.

Both Healion and Spielvogel say they're happy to get together again.

"It's kind of like a homecoming to me," Spielvogel, a UNR graduate, said.

Laughing Planet touts its community involvement, with active participation in a composting program for Portland restaurants.

"Hopefully we can influence the waste management system in Reno, increasing recycling and composting," Spielvogel said.

The chain also won a 2013 "favorite green restaurants" contest run by The Nature Conservancy, which described Laughing Planet as "a quick-service restaurant that offers fresh, healthy and affordable food, using locally sourced organic ingredients and globally inspired flavors."
The Reno location will be one of six new spots planned for Laughing Planet this year. Others are Salt Lake City and, possibly, Boise according to a Portland Business Journal report.
Spielvogel said his eventual goal is for two to four Laughing Planet locations in Reno.

Transportation Nirvana!

Here's the latest clip from Streetfilms.org.  Talk about a total transpiration collective!  Bikes, pedestrians, light rail, automobiles, and yep.....aerial trams!  You don't have to love Portland, but they are definitely the ones pushing the envelope!

Travels and Bicycles....

So as I said yesterday, I've been traveling a bit, both for personal and work reasons.  The whole thing started out with a trip to Portland that has become a bit of a tradition.  It's focused around a week long holiday ale festival that happens in the center of downtown.  With no camera I don't have good pictures....but imagine an entire city block covered in clear roofed tents (two story tents with an actual second floor) with a giant (60 ft?) Christmas tree in the middle and about 100 beers on tap.  Yeah.....that's Christmas!

We also spend a considerable amount of time hitting up some of the 70+ breweries in Portland and checking out some of the great food they have.  In the wanderings this year I came across this:

Now if that's not pride in your bicycle culture I don't know what is!  I guess we still have a ways to go here in Reno.

This one is a terrible cell phone picture of a bicycle specific signal that tells right turning cars in a busy intersection they have to yield to bicycles!  Specific light up signals for bicyclists protection!  Only in Portland!

Ok....so that was the theme for Portland.  After being home for about 36 hours I then headed off to Spokane for a work trip.  Actually, I was a booth lacky at a conference, running a bunch of demonstrations on some of the software we use here at work.  Not to strenuous, just long hours and boring.

The main highlight for me was meeting a guy named Tom.  The interest should be obvious even in the blurry picture.  Many a hipster dreams of a beard like this.

Tom didn't fit the hipster profile (shocking).  Although being in the mining industry he did profess a fondness for blowing stuff up (which seems hipster-ish).  The whole time I talked with him however, I was picturing the aerodynamic effects that mustache would have while riding!  In Tom's case this riding would probably be a horse, but hey....I did say I was bored most of the time.

 Conferences like this don't allow you outside much, so I didn't get to really explore Spokane.  Bicycles are pretty prominent and there are signs of it everywhere.....like this:

So all in all that's why things have been quiet on the posting.  I'm done with travel for a while so I'll try to keep things a bit more up to date.

The first US bicycle counter.

Portland just added a new bike counter (like they have in Denmark).  I'm not sure if it will make people want to ride but it sure will document how many riders Portland really has in that certain section of town.  Let's see the numbers and see if Portland really is the bikiest town in the USA.

Don't hate me....

Well, maybe you should because I leave for Portland in a few hours and I'm going to be going.....

Here......

And Here......

And Here....

And I'm going to be riding these.....

Food truck lot in Reno....What do you think?

I've got a trip to Portland coming up this weekend.  One of the things I'm sure to do is catch lunch at the food carts.  If you're not familiar with this you are missing out.  Basically, the bulk of a city block that used to be a vacant lot is now permanently packed with food trucks (or carts in some cases).  So you can get a gyro while your friend gets Thai or Ethiopian food at the cart to the right or left!  The choices are just about endless and the food is fantastic (it really is).

We're not totally missing the boat here in Reno.  We've seen expansion beyond just the average taco trucks with guys like Gourmelt, Kenji's, Cheeseburger Island Style, and others.  What we don't have it the awesome centralized location like they have in Portland.  So what do you think...

There are a few vacant lots around Reno and Sparks.  Somebody needs to get on this and get the Reno food cart movement kicked into gear!

A slice of Portland is coming to Reno!

I just found this post over on bikereno.net (one of the sites that prompted me to start my blog) about a great event headed for Reno on Tuesday, September 6th.

 

From "The Dinner & Bikes Tour" website:

Here’s a good idea of what you can expect at one of our tour events:

Dinner and Bikes is an evening of gourmet vegan food and bicycle inspiration. Our goal is to create an interactive, engaging event that brings together people with diverse interests and catalyzes new thinking and action around food and transportation
The evening will start around 7pm (on most nights) and last until 9pm, leaving plenty of time for questions, as well as audience discussion about local issues in bicycle transportation.
You’ll fill up your plate, find a seat, and enjoy new and amazing flavor combinations while touring vegan chef Joshua Ploeg describes the meal and ingredients and, if we’re lucky, tell one of his traveling stories.
Then we get to the bicycles. Elly Blue provides an interactive primer on the economics of bicycle transportation, complete with inspiring photos and jaw-dropping statistics. Then Joe Biel will take the stage with a different selection each night of his very-short films that explore different aspects of Portland, Oregon’s bicycle activism and culture.
You’ll also be able to peruse our mobile book and zine shop, featuring transportation and food related titles.

I missed Bikestravaganza when it came to town last year and I'm definitely not missing this one!  

The details:
Tuesday, Sept 6, 7-9pm
Bibo Coffee Co
945 Record St
$7 to $20 sliding scale
Feel free to RSVP here.



Hope to see you there.