Jewels Livingstone Maintains Plant-Based Focus at Morning Glory Café

Jewels Livingstone’s start as owner of the Morning Glory Café was rough. She had worked there part-time for 15 years with Maria Ruiz, the woman who established the restaurant, known locally for its organic plant-based options.

When Ruiz died unexpectedly in 2009, Livingstone found herself with the café and no recipes to go with it.

“It was horrible losing her. I had just taken her to the doctor the day before she passed,” said Livingstone. “Maria’s daughter, Angelica, immediately flew in from New York and I asked her if she would move back to Flagstaff and help run Morning Glory Café with me. She told me she wasn’t interested but would give me Morning Glory Café if I wanted to give it a try. I told her I would, and she gave me the keys to the front door.”

With very little money to supplement the restaurant, Livingstone made it work. “I was insane with grief but quit my full-time job and took a leap of faith. I just started paying the rent on the restaurant, buying groceries and making the tamales.”

Today, the menu offerings are more than 90% organic and 100% plant-based. “We partner with local growers and grow some of our own produce in our on-site garden,” she said.

One popular menu item is the Breakfast Sandwich with veggie sausage, red pepper, cashew cheese, spinach, avocado, tomato and red onion, served on a toasted English muffin alongside home fried potatoes or fruit. Other favorites include the Tamale Breakfast Combo, Breakfast Tacos, Blue Corn Cakes, Bean and Cheese Burritos and the Tempeh Avocado Sandwich.

“There’s a lot of love and passion here,” said Kitchen Chief and Team Leader Dennis Givens. “I’ve worked here for four years, and our food is healthy and mostly organic. We buy from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) or Natural Grocers, but we also grow a lot in our garden. We compost all of our food scraps and we are super sustainable. We produce less than a single household’s worth of trash each week and even use our grey water for landscaping. It’s hard work but I’m rewarded by the business’s growth and seeing people eat healthy.”

The café maintains its tradition of a pay-it-forward program, in which customers can offer $10 and write a note for what Livingstone calls a “Mitzvah Board.” Mitzvah is a Hebrew word meaning good deed. “People who are in need can come in and take donations from the Mitzvah Board,” she said.

Livingstone was born in Fort Jefferson, New York. She spent most of her childhood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and attended high school in Fountain Hills. She came to Flagstaff in 1992 to study environmental science at Northern Arizona University. Her son, Alden, 23, also lives in Flagstaff and cooks in the café one day week.

“He gives me a nice break from the kitchen,” she said. FBN

By V. Ronnie Tierney, FBN

Morning Glory Café is located at 115 S. San Francisco St. For more information, go to morningglorycafeflagstaff.com or call 928-774-3705.