Support great food in your community!

Those sweet smiling faces up there are Joel and Phillis from The Lunch Room and they could use a helping hand. As neighbors and friends, the two discovered a mutual love for cooking and feeding people. They started out hosting dinner parties for friends and serving up scrumptious vegan meals. Just last fall they started hosting a variety of larger "pop-up" restaurant style meals — each served up on their signature retro lunchroom trays in a full array of colors.

And now Phillis and Joel are getting ready for an exciting new venture coming to Ann Arbor this spring — a food cart! You may have heard by now that Mark's Carts is opening behind Downtown Home and Garden in May and will host eight to ten food carts, including one for The Lunch Room. I am so excited for food carts — and especially knowing Phillis and Joel's incredible vegan offerings will be among them.

They have a Kickstarter campaign going to raise the $8,000 they need to get the cart up and running. In return for your support, you could have a menu item named after you, sport an extremely fashionable Lunch Room tee, or grab a free sandwich and a magnet. The most important part is that you'll be supporting two people following their passion and contributing to the community — and food scene — in tremendous ways. And, to top it all off, they've made a really great video to tell their story! 

Before I had been to any of their meals, I discovered Phillis' blog, Making Life Real, about choosing to take a year of "purposeful unemployment" to explore and rediscover her life's passions. I have so much respect for someone involved in such a mindful journey and it's been a pleasure to read along with her adventures. Her enthusiasm and energy level are almost enough to convince me to convert to a vegan lifestyle — almost. 

In the meantime, I've had the pleasure of attending two of their pop-up meals at Pot and Box and both were so delicious and perfect that I forgot to take my camera out of my bag on both occasions. But let me tell you, each little lunch tray portion was filled with a delectable item — highlights for me include the homemade coconut yogurt with granola, a tortilla filled with the most insanely delicious curried potato, carrot chickpea filling from heaven — oh yea, and then there were the Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes! Mmmmmm… I can't wait to be able to get a taste of these treats any time I want at the food cart court!