ADVOCATE - Lakewood / East Dallas | article online
by Kris Scott
Can a restaurant that serves only raw, vegan food survive in a state where the biggest culinary boasts are barbecue and brisket? Cynthia Beavers thinks so. Beavers recently opened PURE Raw Café on Greenville , and she insists her menu is more than salad bar and carrot sticks.
“It’s fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds — it tastes and looks like it’s cooked, but it’s not,” she says. The menu includes a wide variety of offerings: Greek Dolmas, Mediterranean Nachos, Living Lasagna, an Eden Sushi Roll, and many different soups and salads (see purerawcafe.com for a menu).
“And it’s all fresh,” Beavers says. “We don’t use anything in a can, jar or box.”
A Certified Nutritional Consultant, Beavers has been a vegetarian since the age of 14, when her family’s eating habits changed due to her mother’s illness. Today, what she eats is more about lifestyle than diet.
“Living and raw foods have a much higher nutritional value than cooked foods,” she says.
But she insists she’s not out to convert everyone into raw food junkies. She just wants people to give it a chance.
“It’s extremely gourmet, and the flavors are amazing.” In fact, she admits that even she doesn’t eat raw food 100 percent of the time. “But when I do,” she says, “I feel fantastic.”
