Harvesting a Dream

Robert and Ulrika Glover, owners of Harvest Café in Ventura, were looking for an attainable step they could take, with limited resources, toward being a part of a movement in health and sustainability. Was it a yoga and Pilates studio, a surfers’ wellness center with a café? And could they sustain their family and contribute to the health of their community with a small farm of their own?

The couple, who are now successful restaurateurs and micro-farmers, say it was a vision, with a very open mind. And it gave them the freedom to pursue their dream while also being shaped by their community.

“We knew we wanted to help people feed their bodies right, with better taste and nutrition,” says Ulrika Glover, a native of Sweden with a degree in holistic health and nutrition. “We also felt that we were following the community, being pulled in to what they wanted. Now, Harvest Café is their living room, a meeting space for families, yogis, farmers, activists and entrepreneurs, and we still have lots of positive support.”

The restaurant and farm, built out of a desire to promote health and sustainability, are providing just that for the local community, and their family. Everything they eat comes from what they are able to grow on the farm or glean from the kitchen in the restaurant. The farm was essential for the Glovers because they felt it was the only way to provide a complete farm-to-table experience for themselves and their customers.

Harvest Café, located on Ventura Avenue near the edge of Old Town Ventura, isn’t just a restaurant but more like an idealist’s dream. It is a model of true plant-based nutrition that tastes like food is supposed to and is completely free of processed ingredients. Everything is made from scratch, with local ingredients. Much of the lettuces, sprouts, kale, chard and edible flowers they grow themselves on their micro-farm in Oak View, which they oversee from a tiny house on the property.

They are able to grow about 10% of what is used in the restaurant and raise a flock of free-range chickens for eggs, but in order to offer the full, plant-forward menu they had in mind, with the freshest ingredients, they rely on relationships with nearby farms that share their values, such as Rio Gozo in Ojai, Coleman Family Farms near Casitas Springs, King & King Ranch in Somis and Steel Acres in Meiners Oaks, for the rest.

Having both a restaurant and a farm allows the Glovers to be as sustainable as possible. “We are farm-to-table, but also table-to-farm,” says Ulrika. Food waste from the restaurant is brought back to the farm and composted or fed to the chickens.

Robert and Ulrika feel fortunate to be able to live off of their farm and make meals on a two-burner gas stove in their tiny house. “It allows us to get by without having to be greedy about money,” says Ulrika.

In the future, they hope to offer educational opportunities at the farm, and possibly cooking lessons at the restaurant. They recently hosted students on a field trip from an elementary school that is walking distance from their farm.

Through trial and error, the Glovers are self-made experts in sustainable to-go products. “We want the highest level of sustainability, with everything compostable, in a compost pile, without the need for an industrial compost facility, which isn’t available in California anyway,” says Robert, who earned his degree in business. He previously pursued a career in landscape, and later designed and created edible gardens.

The Glovers say that their food philosophy is gaining momentum. At the same time, they also want to provide food choices for an even wider clientele, including people who just want to eat good food but who may not be following a particular diet.

The menu is completely vegetarian, and offers a vegan option for every item, as well as Paleo versions and traditional milk and cheese products by request. Ojai Natural Foods and Vegan Mario in Oak View supply gluten-free breads, which are made without white flours or substitutions that would compromise the café’s whole-food philosophy.

“The food is healthy, but we want our customers to feel like they can bring their dad or whoever with them to the restaurant,” says Robert. Ulrika adds, “We are planting a seed that you don’t need to have meat with every meal and that fresh, pure plants and whole foods are delicious.”

Limited space in their tiny house on the farm and in the Harvest Café kitchen could be frustrating, but for the Glovers it is a reminder and an inspiration to pursue a minimalist lifestyle and use only fresh ingredients in their cooking, which Ulrika proudly calls a form of art.

“Without extra space and large freezers, we must use everything fresh and give our staff a lot of freedom and creativity,” she says.

On New Year’s Day 2020, Harvest Café hopes to celebrate three years in business. In March, the Glovers will celebrate their third wedding anniversary. They hadn’t planned to open a restaurant and get married just two and a half months later, but a complete buildout of the space took a year to complete and a mudslide derailed their plan for a wedding at El Capitan. Instead, they were married at an orchard in Goleta and held the reception at the restaurant, celebrating their new endeavors among friends and family.

Harvest Café is located in the WAV (Working Artists Ventura) complex, which was built with the latest in green technology and is LEED Certified. The restaurant is currently open for breakfast and lunch and the Glovers hope to open for dinner in 2020. On the first Friday of every month, they offer a dinner event featuring live music and local art.

For more information visit HarvestCafeVentura.com.