Sage’s Café is a full-service vegan restaurant featuring seasonal, local, and globally inspired cuisine. Vertical Diner, with the same owner, is a hip, circa-1955 vintage diner offering vegan comfort food, local music, and art.

Is this your first restaurant?

Yes, Sage is. I opened it on December 21, 1999. I opened Vertical Diner in 2007.

How many do you hope to have in the future? Will you expand further?

I have a third currently, Café SuperNatural. I hope to open a fine dining restaurant in another state some day. I am very interested in Oregon.

What’s your favorite dish on the menu?

My favorite dishes on the Sage menu are the shiitake escargot and the tiramisu. At Vertical Diner, the Avalanche is the most popular dish on the menu! The joke is, “You are going to get buried by the Avalanche.” It’s a large combo plate consisting of two pancakes, house breakfast sausage, hash browns, and tofu scramble.

What’s your most popular appetizer?

At Sage, it’s the carrot butter pâte with crostini. At Vertical Diner, loyal customers and visitors rave about the Buffalo Tigers at Vertical Diner. This dish is “hot wings” for vegans. They’re perfectly spicy and perfectly crisp! And they taste best with one of our local beers!

What’s the most popular entrée on the menu?

For Sage, it’s the Casseruola, the Magic Wok, and the Mushroom Stroganoff—we have such a perfected menu that all of our entrées are ordered evenly! At Vertical Diner, the most popular entrée on the menu is the American Diner Plate, which is a hefty serving of mashed potatoes topped with our house-made fried seitan and smothered in our savory gravy.

What’s your most popular dessert?

Sage’s tiramisu. And shoofly cake has been a hit at Vertical Diner!

What do you feel is special about one of your restaurants?

Vertical Diner is a place where we break the myth that “eating vegan is boring.” We serve “craveable” foods that feel good to the body, mind, and spirit. We work to make sure both meat-eaters and hardcore vegans are equally comfortable in our space.

How often do you change your menu items? Do you have daily or weekly specials?

At Sage, the seasonal small plates menu and our wine menu change every three months. We have a daily seasonal chef special and a brunch special every Saturday and Sunday. The raw food chef tasting is the last Friday every month. And the pizza night menu is served every Tuesday.

Our menu at Vertical Diner changes as we rotate seasonal and locally sourced produce (we make it a priority to build relationships with local farmers). We serve breakfast all day, every day. And every Sunday night we have Soul Food Sunday: a special American Southern comfortfood menu with favorites like butter beans, collards, barbecued pulled mushroom-stem sandwiches, corn bread, hush puppies, fried pickles, and apple fritters.

Do you have gluten-free, soy-free, and sugar-free options on your menu?

Sage’s Café can prepare most of the menu glutenfree. The soup of the day is always prepared gluten-free and soy-free.

At Vertical Diner, people are so happy when they hear that our pancakes, burritos, sandwiches, and almost every item can be ordered gluten-free! We also offer rice milk, almond milk, and other alternatives for those eating soy-free. We work hard to make sure there is an option for everyone at the table!

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as owner or chef of this restaurant?

I’ve learned that people who eat vegan are loyal, compassionate, community focused, and also some of the craziest people I have met, besides myself.

What led you to want to open a vegan restaurant, and/or what led you to the vegan diet yourself?

I felt like being part of the change that I wish to see. I wanted to create my own cosmic bubble here in Salt Lake City that promotes positivity all around!

In the time since Sage first opened, how has the plant-based food movement changed?

Between 1998, when I graduated college and started the Greens Food Cart and then Sage’s Café, and now I have seen so many more options become available. Thanks to HappyCow for assisting in creating a great veg food scene in the US and beyond!

How has your view of what constitutes healthy or delicious foods changed? Have you changed what you offer?

We have always been aware of the wide range of diets within vegan cuisine and look for ways to serve our guests’ needs and preferences. We added donuts to our menu last year based on customer demand and the creativity of our chefs. The donuts are delicious, vegan, made with organic flour—and are not intended to be particularly healthy. We just love serving wonderfully prepared vegan cuisine that is delicious and happens to be healthier than what is served at most restaurants.

Where do you see the plant-based food movement going in coming years?

In 1999, there were twenty or so vegan gourmet restaurants in the US. Now there are hundreds. In 2013, Salt Lake City, with a population of 150,000, become a leading city in vegan plant-based culture, with ten vegan food businesses, cafés, restaurants, and bakeries. It is just the beginning for plant-based foods.

Sage’s Shiitake Escargot

Serves 8–10

For the shiitake marinade:

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

½ cup Burgundy wine

¼ cup minced garlic

1¼ cups water

¼ cup olive oil

2 teaspoons ground rosemary

2 teaspoons ground brown mustard

1½ tablespoons sea salt

1 cup fresh shiitake mushrooms

For the carrot butter pâte:

2½ cups peeled and chopped carrots

¾ cup macadamia nuts

½ cup safflower or canola oil

2 tablespoons maple syrup

½ tablespoon vanilla

½ tablespoon salt

Prepare the marinade the night before: Add all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl and whisk them together, blending until smooth. Soak shiitake mushrooms in the marinade and leave them soaking overnight in the refrigerator, or for 8 hours.

To make the carrot butter pâte, boil the chopped carrots in water for 2 hours. Strain and save stock for future soups or other recipes. Combine boiled carrots and all the other ingredients in the pot. Blend together with an immersion blender until fully combined. Remove to a bowl and chill.

To assemble: Preheat your oven’s broiler. Place the marinated mushrooms and a little leftover marinade in a shallow roasting pan. (You can use a soufflé dish or a stainless-steel baking pan.) The layers should not be deeper than 2 mushroom slices. Portion 4–8 tablespoons carrot butter in either the same roasting pan or in a separate roaster. Broil both the mushrooms and carrot butter for approximately 8 minutes. Serve with toasted baguette slices.

Vertical Diner’s Tofu Scramble

Serves 2–4

1 14-ounce brick firm tofu

¼ teaspoon turmeric

¼ teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil (sunflower or canola), plus more for frying

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes

Drain the brick of tofu and rinse. Press tofu brick between 2 plates with a weight on the top plate to squeeze out excess water. Drain liquid and rinse tofu brick again. In mixing bowl, crumble tofu into large pebble-size pieces and add all of the spices, salt, oil, and nutritional yeast. In an oiled skillet, add tofu and heat slowly over low heat so that the tofu doesn’t stick to the pan. Cook until hot and all ingredients are well integrated. Make sure that the tofu is not too mashed. It should be mashed down to dime-to-quarter-size chunks. When making larges batches, mash with a potato masher. Remove and serve.

I modified a vegan version of my grandmother’s shoofly cake recipe. It’s great for breakfast or as a dessert. Don’t forget to drench it in a shot of espresso and a scoop of vegan So Delicious vanilla ice cream!

Vertical Diner’s Shoofly Cake

Serves 12

For the streusel:

4 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup shortening, chilled

1 teaspoon salt

1½ cups sugar

For the cake base:

1½ cups water

½ cup sugar

½ cup molasses

1½ tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon baking soda

Start with the streusel. In mixing bowl, mix flour into chilled shortening and add salt and sugar to create a crumble. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan well. Set aside.

To assemble the cake base, in a large 1-gallon pot, mix together the water, sugar, molasses, and vinegar. Bring the liquid ingredients to a boil. When the liquid reaches a simmer, turn off heat. Add the baking soda and stir really well to prevent the liquid from foaming over. Pour the liquid into the greased cake pan.

Add the crumble evenly over the liquid in the cake pan, allowing some pieces to sink and some to float. Ideally, half of the crumble will be floating and the other half will be absorbed into the liquid.

Place the cake pan in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 1 hour, or until the cake is done—until a toothpick comes out clean with no crumbs attached. Serve this moist molasses cake with vegan ice cream or soak it up with a shot of espresso—or do both!

Sage’s Tiramisu

Serves 12

For the vanilla cake:

2½ cups all-purpose flour

1¾ cups evaporated cane juice

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon vinegar

⅔ cup canola or safflower oil

2 cups water

For the mascarpone-style tofu cream:

7 ounces extra-firm silken tofu, drained

14 ounces soft tofu, drained

¾ cup sugar

½ cup canola or safflower oil

¼ cup bottled lemon juice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon sea salt

For the chocolate syrup:

1¼ cups cocoa powder

1 cup water

2 cups evaporated cane juice

Pinch sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the mocha-rum sauce:

¼ cup rum

½ cup chocolate syrup (recipe above)

½ cup liquid espresso

To assemble:

Ground cinnamon (garnish)

Tip: You can make this cake the night before the day of serving.

For the vanilla cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place parchment paper on the bottom of each of two 9 x 13 cake pans. Sift together all dry ingredients for vanilla cake. Whisk in all the wet ingredients for the cake. Portion out an equal amount of batter into each pan. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 12 to 15 minutes or until the cake is light brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

For the mascarpone-style tofu cream: Add all ingredients to a blender and blend together until cream is uniform. Set aside and chill.

For the chocolate syrup: Add all ingredients to a blender and blend together until the syrup is uniform and sugar is dissolved, approximately 10 minutes.

For the mocha-rum sauce: Whisk together all the sauce ingredients until all ingredients are integrated.

To assemble: Remove vanilla cakes from their pans and peel off the parchment paper. Place 1 sheet of vanilla cake on a clean 9 x 13 pan. Soak it in ¾ cup of mocha rum sauce. Once the sauce is fully absorbed into the cake, scoop up one-third of the cream mixture and spread evenly across the cake. Follow that with another sheet of cake on top of the cream. Poke this layer with a fork to allow the sauce to infuse evenly. Slowly pour the rest of the mocha rum sauce over the top sheet of cake. When this has absorbed fully, spread the rest of the cream over the top evenly. Cover the cake carefully to protect it from picking up flavors from other items and place it in the fridge. Let the cake settle and firm for at least 8 hours. Score the cake into 12 servings—this will be 3 slices by 4 slices. Use a brownie server to properly pull these slices out of pan—the cake is fragile and is best taken from the pan with a server that is flat and is the same size as the piece you are taking out. Garnish each portion with chocolate syrup recipe and ground cinnamon.