The Night Kitchen is Bigger, Better and Greener than Ever

When Amy Edelman and her husband John Millard decided to expand their bakery, , nearly nine months ago, Edelman took her own advice.

As a founding member of Green in Chestnut Hill (GRinCH), Edelman has helped restaurants in the area become more eco-friendly. So as The Night Kitchen expanded to include a café, they found ways to make the place as green as possible.

“We eliminated all Styrofoam. That doesn’t seem so complicated, but we used Styrofoam dummies in our cake making, so we had to find a way to replace them,” Edelman said.

She explained that the bakers now use cardboard cake boxes, doubled up to reinforce the weight of the fondant, to do away with the Styrofoam dummies.

“We help other places in Chestnut Hill get rid of Styrofoam, so we found a way to do it, too,” Edelman said.

During the expansion, what is now the retail and café space used reclaimed wood for the hardwood floors and countertops. To avoid using new materials, an existing sink and cabinetry were refurbished.

“This area was basically a shell, but there was a little kitchen area with a sink, so we refurbished it to work for us,” Edelman said.

In the expansion, The Night Kitchen more than tripled its retail space, allowing for an indoor seating area, which led to the creation of a café menu. With the additional food being served, Edelman found a way to preserve scraps and other materials.

“We compost with Philly Compost. We have scraps of food and coffee grounds and filters that are composted. We have little buckets al over for emptying scraps into, and we’ll have a separate bucket in the front soon for customers to dump their own scraps,” Edelman said.

The bakery and café also bought into a Cow Share, with a woman in the West Philadelphia area.

“We own one-eighth of a cow,” Edelman said.

All of these measures, in the face of an expansion and a growth of at least 20 percent in their business in the last nine months have made The Night Kitchen a certified Green Restaurant, a label Edelman is proud to have. As a founding member of GRinCH, the eco-friendliness of her own business is a stepping stone to making Chestnut Hill as green as possible. She was also a key player in getting for along Germantown Avenue, the first of which can be found (where else?) in front of The Night Kitchen.

When walking by, you can stop and watch through the window as cakes are decorated, and get a preview of the trash compactors, which will be joined by 14 more in the fall.