Ocean Friendly Restaurants Spotlight: Snooze A.M. Eatery in Laguna Niguel, CA

Tyral Starkey, GM at Snooze, an A.M. Eatery in Laguna Niguel, CA  speaks passionately about Snooze and environmental sustainability. 

“Restaurants can be so wasteful in nature, it’s more important than ever to make responsible decisions that do not negatively impact the environment,” he told Surfrider. “ At Snooze, we compost because turning old food into new soil is a no-brainer, recycling is second nature, and eliminating the need for single-use plastics just makes sense.”

Although a new addition to the Ocean Friendly Restaurants program in South Orange County, CA, Snooze is not at all new at implementing sustainable practices. Since opening in 2006 in Denver, CO Snooze has gone on to set the green restaurant standard in Denver and other major cities. 

Their Change Makers Report released in 2019 outlines an impressive array of forward-thinking initiatives that they’ve met in their 15 years in business — as well as the goals they strive to meet by 2025. Like operating 100% zero landfill waste kitchens across all 40+ locations, and ditching disposables in impactful ways wherever possible. The popular orange reusable coffee mug program at their “while-you-wait stations” has successfully diverted from landfills over 50,000 disposable coffee cups per Snooze restaurant each year. In 2018, they eliminated plastic straws. Today, they are close to reaching their goal of using 100% responsibly sourced food. And by 2025, they aim to purchase 50% electricity from renewable sources.