While getting hyperlocal produce is an obvious application of a green wall, most restaurants need a lot more produce than a typical green wall can yield. Many restaurants use just a few vegetables from the green wall, like carrots or kale in salads. More often, mixologists and chefs are using the herbs on the wall for cooking and adding to craft cocktails.
“Figure out what you want its primary function to be,” Jasper says. “If it’s mainly going to be for beautification, it’s more about the ambience. Realistically, for larger restaurants, we’d need a lot bigger live walls to really be a viable source of produce.”
“It doesn’t have to be just for food production,” adds Lori May, LiveWall sales specialist. “For harvesting, that’s great, but people also want it for ambience and color and a focal point. We’ve been doing that a lot lately for beer gardens. And indoor walls are usually focused more on ambience.”
So the Sky Patio’s green wall isn’t meant to be a workhorse producer of veggies, but a few items, like Swiss chard (pictured) make their way onto plates and the herbs get used a lot by chefs and mixologists.