Meet Sullivan Scrap Kitchen in Denver

Don’t let the name fool you: While Sullivan Scrap Kitchen is scrappily committed to using every possible ounce of ingredients and their motto is “No Scraps Left Behind,” there’s nothing scrap-like about the bounty served at this unassuming brunch spot in Denver’s Uptown neighborhood.

The concept for this “root to stem, nose to tail” philosophy was originally rooted in practicality. Executive chef and co-owner Terence Rogers slung pizzas at a ski resort and worked at food trucks before he and now-wife and partner Holly Adinoff began hosting apartment pop-up dinners and eventually launching their personal chef and catering operation, TBD Foods. Catering produces a lot of leftovers, and a summer stage at New York’s famed Blue Hill at Stone Barns showed him the possibilities of managing waste.

“That was super-informative and taught me a lot about sustainability, how to really utilize concepts like root-to-tip cooking, along with nose to tail,” says Rogers. “On the farm, some of the food would go to pig food, some would go to compost — it was a really eye-opening experience.”

The couple began doing sandwich pop-ups to maximize unused ingredients from TBD. “We could give things to people, we could donate them, but being a small catering company, we’d struggle to find avenues for them. Our mission here is to utilize stuff before it hits the compost.” They transitioned to their brick-and-mortar in — of all months — April of 2020. “It wasn’t the greatest time in the world to take on the expenses of a new restaurant,” Rogers admits. “But we really believed in what we were doing.”

Reducing food waste became the first of Sullivan’s sustainability pillars. In addition to sourcing, Rogers evaluates food in a hierarchy. “Is this perfect on its own, like a summer heirloom tomato from one of our farms, a perfectly ripe peach, an incredible piece of meat? You don’t need to do much to it, it doesn’t need to be manipulated. Is it kind of off-looking? Does it need to be turned into a sauce or fermented into pickles?”

Sullivan’s team uses inedible pieces, like beet and ginger peels, to infuse simple syrups for refreshing limeades. “Our bar manager, Carey Lieberman, does an incredible job of taking anything that could potentially be wasted and making syrups and cocktails,” he explains. “It’s a nice, symbiotic relationship between front of house and back of house, and that’s been lovely to see over the years.”

Other “scraps” given a second life include day-old beignets incorporated into monkey bread with orange, cinnamon, and honey cream cheese icing; sourdough discard enriching pancakes; and vegetable tops and peels transformed into seed-and-stem pestos and umami-laden stocks.

“Our team is the second pillar,” Rogers continues. “I’ve worked at places that preach sustainability and say good things, but at the end of the day, everyone’s working about 100 hours in the kitchen. No one’s getting paid. No one’s treating themselves well. So we really want to create a sustainable environment for our staff because they’re our most important ingredient. They pull everything together.” The third pillar is composed of local purveyors and community partners, such as We Don’t Waste and Slow Food.

Of course restaurants need to make some profit to stay afloat, so finances are the fourth pillar at Sullivan Scrap Kitchen. “We constantly look for ways to improve,” he says. “One of the main things we started to do is to build ambiguity into our menu, so we can make those changes. Seasonal vegetables, soup of the day, sandwich of the week — that way [our menu] can really fluctuate and tie into what we’re doing with catering, to make sure we’re utilizing everything and that it’s not going to waste.”

The restaurant is open only for brunch, Thursday to Sunday, leaving evenings free for catering. Sullivan Scrap Kitchen also hosts a supper club and a cooking class once a month.