Columbus’ only vegan eatery reopens beloved salad bar with nearly 50 items

Some folks have called it the best salad bar in Columbus or even in the Chattahoochee Valley. That’s a valuable reputation for any establishment, but when you are the only vegan eatery in the area, such recognition is the meat — uh, textured soy protein — and potatoes of your business.

So after the refrigeration unit in the original salad bar went kaput approximately a month ago at the more than 40-year-old Country Life Vegetarian Restaurant & Natural Food Store, 1217 Eberhart Ave., no rioting, picketing or food fight broke out, but patrons were disappointed and restaurant manager Shirley Mellette was “heartbroken.”

“The greatest concern is that the salad bar has been the center of this restaurant for many years,” Mellette said Wednesday, “so not having that available to the public was just devastating.”

Country Life, across Wynnton Road from the Aflac tower and abutting parking lots with Dinglewood Pharmacy, where the famous scrambled dogs have real meat, is an outreach ministry of the nonprofit Uchee Pines Institute, a lifestyle center in Seale, Ala., operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Customers had to wait more than three weeks for the new salad bar to arrive.

Mellette said, “Some patrons and others would call and ask, ‘Is it there yet?’ Or they would come in and say, ‘When is the salad bar coming?’ Some would go somewhere else, but many of them would come back and say, ‘There’s just no equal to what we have here.’ They missed the fresh options, the choices, the variety.”

Just ask Bruce Bundt, a contractor at Fort Benning, who has been frequenting Country Life for nine years. He typically goes for the salad bar, so he had to alter his lunch plan.

“I’m not a vegetarian,” he said. “The fake meat doesn’t appeal to me as much.”

But he’s “90 percent” vegetarian, eating mostly fish and vegetables. He prefers Country Life’s salad bar, Bundt said, “because it represents all the colors, the best variety of vegetables in any salad bar that I’ve tried in Columbus.”

Mellette convinced some salad bar loyalists to try more entrees or other cooked items. She gained some conversions, such as Bundt. He discovered Country Life’s spanakopita, a Greek spinach pie, is mighty tasty, but he still salivated for the salad bar.

Others customers vowed to hold out until the new, custom-made salad bar was installed. That time came Sunday, following this post on Country Life’s Facebook page Friday night: “Oh, happy day! The salad bar is back!”

“The reaction has been overwhelming,” Mellette said. “They say, ‘You have the salad bar!’ They’re just so happy and overjoyed, as well as all of us here too.”

The new salad bar, comprising 49 items, is “a little bit longer” than the old one, Mellette said, “with a little more nuts and dried fruits.”

Country Life suffered a “noticeable dip” in its business during the interim, she said, but it is returning to the usual level as word spreads.

While he anticipated the new salad bar’s arrival, Bundt tried and liked the Bare Roots Farmacy, a “farm-to-table” restaurant that opened in downtown Columbus earlier this year. But, he said, “I’m partial here, just because the atmosphere seems like family. Everyone is very friendly. ... Shirley takes a lot of pride in her presentation, and they take a lot of pride in their salad bar, so it was well worth the wait.”

This story was originally published May 31, 2017 at 2:48 PM with the headline "Columbus’ only vegan eatery reopens beloved salad bar with nearly 50 items."