I was driving down Buford highway after leaving an appointment just thinking about how hungry I was and wanting to try something different. I know I have to find a place to eat soon or I'm going to be hangry at any moment, I find a place to park and start searching on my phone for a place and I saw this place name called “Antoinette’s Café” it catches my eye because “Café” is coffee in Spanish and especially when Spanish is my first language, that makes it perfect for me to dine and enjoy in that place. I found this place after a long search. Antoinette’s Café offers food that is fresh and organic. It also has a special vegan option, which I don’t mind eating because I've tried vegan food before. This place has pretty good reviews and it has a website available. I entered to the website and I see it was also near the location that I was in, and I can read a statement that says “Relax in our cozy environment or pick up some fresh food to go! Either way, you can enjoy our delicious food and drink made with the organic freshest ingredients supplied by local GA suppliers” (Hwang, Antoinette's Café). So decided to go eat there. After arriving, I notice that the place was empty from the outside, which I don’t find strange because it was three thirty in the afternoon, which is not a popular time to have lunch or out to eat and it makes it a lot quicker for me to get my food. When I opened the door, instantly, a man greeted me.
“Welcome, how are you?” He asked.
“I'm good, thank you.” I respond. I noticed that he was paying attention to me from the moment I reached to open the
door. He is already scoring points for customer service.
As I looked around, I realized that this place is clean and neat, white tiles and good lighting made the place very bright, so I feel comfortable. It's time to look at the menu and there I am trying to decide. I am so hungry that I do not know what to order now. The person in the counter is just staring and smiling at me.
“This is my first time here, so I apologize for taking a little too long to order” I told him.
“No worries sir, please take your time and if you have any questions please just ask” He replied.
I ordered the turkey club and a medium green thumb smoothie that had lots of fruit and probiotics and protein, then I sat down in a table by the corner to wait. At that moment I have a better view of the café and I noticed there was a bench next to the windows with pillows it looked perfect to sit down with a cup of coffee and a good book, maybe another day. The smoothie was made very quickly, and I got a free upgrade to a large drink. I was more than happy, and I start to think if my sandwich is also going to be upgraded. I decided to try the smoothie because I couldn’t wait for my meal and the smoothie was everything. It was made with bananas, fresh apple juice, mango, spinach, kale, lemon, spirulina, protein and probiotics. The green thumb had a smooth texture and to my surprise a sweet flavor. I never thought a green colored smoothie would taste so good and I was more than happy that I got that free upgrade. This made me think of Freedman’s essay “How Junk Food Can End Obesity” where he mentions his experience of buying a smoothie: “The result was tasty, but at 300 calories (by my rough calculation) in a 16-ounce cup, it was more than my diet could regularly absorb without consequences, nor was I about to make a habit of 9$ shakes, healthy or not”. I find this statement a little ignorant because judging a smoothie based on a “rough calculation” of three hundred calories is not accurate information for him to make a point.
A few minutes later I received my sandwich and I was not disappointed on how it looked. It was big and made with 3 slices of bread with some mayo, you can see the slices of turkey perfectly stacked in top of each other with the cheese on top, bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. I do not like tomatoes however, I come to notice that organic tomatoes taste different than “regular” tomatoes. I decided to try it with the tomatoes, and I am telling you this meal did not disappointed me at all. The flavor was amazing, different, exactly what I was looking for, and it was so good that I was eating the pieces of tomatoes that were falling on to the plate. In that moment, I was in food heaven. While I was eating, a few people came by ordering and picking up smoothies or food and I understood why. It was delicious, the establishment might not be packed the entire time but now I understand why, it's because people order to go. After I was done eating I went up to talk to the man in the counter.
“Hi sir, sorry to bother you, my name is Eliot. Do you have some time for a few questions about the place?” I asked.
He looked at me smiling and replied, “of course, how can I help?”
We talked for a little bit and I found out that he is the owner of this lovely place. His name is Enoch Hwang and he is from South Korea, which is something that I thought because of his facial features and an accent that I was familiar with, since I lived in Japan for three years and visited Busan, South Korea multiple times. The idea of the name came from a coffee shop in Singapore that has the same name and almost the same concept. He explained that he changed a lot of things, how Antoinette’s Café here in Buford is different than the one in Singapore because it no longer serves just coffee but also smoothies and a variety of sandwiches. I was surprised to see vegan options in an area that is not busy.
“This is not a busy area, where the idea of vegan options came from?” I asked.
“My mother is vegan, so I have a little background on vegan foods and some of the health benefits that it can bring to a person’s body and also to encourage a healthy lifestyle.” He replied.
He also said that he has the options available because he believes people are becoming more conscious of the things that they eat and drifting away from fast foods or other foods labeled as “unhealthy”.
“Why use organic products?” I asked him.
He replied, “I like to use fresh and organic products to deliver a better flavor and overall experience to my costumer and also to support local farmers that support my store.”
We talked for a few more minutes and then I left. I sat in my car with a full and satisfied feeling thinking how good Antoinette's Café is and realized I didn’t order a vegan meal even though that was one of the reasons why I chose this place to eat. I just can't turn away from a turkey and bacon sandwich. After eating the turkey club, it will be hard for me to go back and try something different but sometimes different can be good. In conclusion, Antoinette's Café is a great establishment to eat healthy and fresh organic products from local farmers with an outstanding atmosphere and customer service.
Freedman , David H. "How Junk Food Can End Obesity." Baur, Holly. Food Matters: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. Boston/New York: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 2017. 317.
Hwang, Enoch. Antoinette's Café. n.d. 08 Oct 2019.
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Hwang, Enoch. Antoniette's Café Eliot MatíasQuintana. 08 Oct 2019.
