Toasted Owl Restaurateur Opening Plantasia in The Cottage

Cecily Maniaci got her taste for the food business early in life. She grew up in Tusayan’s Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse, owned by her family. Now, the owner of two Flagstaff restaurants, The Toasted Owl Café and The Toasted Owl East Side, is opening a third in Phoenix this fall. She’s also engaging in a new restaurant concept. The plant-based Plantasia is expected to take root this summer in the building that previously housed The Cottage.

“It’s going to be a fun restaurant with plants on all the walls and artificial grass for floor covering,” she said.

Plantasia will offer a vegan menu. “We’ll serve approachable health food, roasted or steamed, with no oil, just vegetables.”

Feeding the Plant-Loving Palate
Currently, Maniaci offers meat-alternative options in her restaurants. She’s championed Flagstaff-based NexVeg products since Jonathan Netzky started his whole-food manufacturing company, Local Alternative Food, almost eight years ago. The Toasted Owl serves a NexVeg hamburger and uses the whole-food, plant-based food to make tacos and vegan breakfasts. “It’s super versatile. People love it!”

Right now, Netzky and Maniaci are exploring ways to better serve the plant-loving palate. “NexVeg is taking a more localized focus,” said Netzky. “We’ve been able to make clean, fresh food and hold true to our sustainability focus, but it’s been cost-prohibitive to scale up from Flagstaff. We are now looking at a new business model that supplies local restaurants and helps restaurants in other cities manufacture their own NexVeg product.”

The original NexVeg burger is premised on the tepary bean, a high-protein legume dry-farmed in Southern Arizona. He also combines other regional foods, including Navajo blue cornmeal, organic oats, fresh carrots and onions, and sunflower kernels, flavored by the wood smoked spices of Flagstaff’s Grand Canyon Spice Company.

“The number one compliment we get is, ‘When I eat a NexVeg burger, I can still see all the wonderful real food ingredients that it’s made of,” he said.

To maintain freshness, Netzky creates micro batches. “We’re able to control the quality and the food safety – all of the attributes that surround the idea that you want – to add-value to really fresh food by transforming it to another form without heavily processing it.”

Netzky, a mechanical engineer, moved to Flagstaff 10 years ago for the scenic beauty and active outdoors lifestyle. He was motivated to create a plant-based whole food after watching his friend’s mom bring his friend’s dad back to health by feeding him a predominantly plant-based diet. Netzky created a catering company and began selling his NexVeg product through the Diablo Burger and Mama Burger, and then at the Flagstaff Farmers Market.

He has currently halted NexVeg production as he figures out how to best scale the production for markets both within and beyond Arizona.

Maniaci’s Transformation
Meanwhile, Maniaci made a personal shift in her diet nine months ago. Describing herself as “super diabetic” since childhood, she says her hands would become inflamed and painful and she was haunted by the thought of losing a limb from poor circulation as she aged. To combat the disease she was injecting herself with insulin three times a week. However, last September, she became inspired at a seminar about whole foods. She changed her diet. That decision developed into a complete lifestyle shift, which planted the seeds for “Plantasia.”

“I’m feeling so good about what happened in my transformation and I’ve learned you can eat really healthy flavorful food,” she said.

As a result, Maniaci says she has shed 30 pounds and is off diabetes medications. “I’ve never felt better and I have so much energy!”

TAKING FLIGHT
Ten years ago, Maniaci spread her entrepreneurial wings, landing in Flagstaff with the Toasted Owl, which quickly became a local favorite. “I think it’s because it feels like you’re walking into your aunt or grandma’s house. There’s a very nostalgic, kind of chaotic feeling in the restaurant that people like. It’s very Flagstaff, the food is very good with good portions. You don’t leave hungry.”

Previously, Maniaci was a school teacher in Phoenix. “My students would bring me owls during the Harry Potter years,” she said, referencing J.K. Rowling’s wizarding series in which the owls deliver messages.

Her owl collection populated her restaurant and she found the theme fit well with her love for breakfast and lunch, vintage furniture, cooking and people. “We have owls and we serve toast. Plus, I love to shop and [just about] everything here is for sale, so it works!”

The second Toasted Owl opened in east Flagstaff in November 2015. Her third is expected to nest this fall in Phoenix, on Camelback Road and Third Ave. FBN

By Bonnie Stevens, FBN

Hear more about NexVeg from Jonathan Netzky on Zonie Living, at Dave Pratt’s StarWorldWideNetworks.com