Food for cars

[Sequoia]

Mitch Mechanic believes there’s only one failsafe way to gauge a restaurant’s quality: Check its waste oil.

“Don’t read the reviews,” the hyperkinetic Mechanic declares as he pokes a vacuum hose thick as an elephant’s trunk into a grease collection bin behind the Grove Arcade. “Look at their oil. A really good, conscientious restaurant will use expensive oil and change it more often.”

Quality choices like that make for fresh, tasty food, and—more importantly for Mechanic and the rest of the crew at Blue Ridge Biofuels— fryer oil that can easily be converted into high-grade fuel. Feedstock Manager Micah Nerenberg speaks about his raw ingredients with a chef’s reverence, only reluctantly shying away from words like “golden” to express his admiration for some restaurants’ waste products.

“We have five restaurants in Rat Alley that make absolutely beautiful stuff,” says Nerenberg, referring to a dark corridor that runs behind a downtown strip of restaurants. “That oil is superb.”

http://www.mountainx.com/dining/2008/043008food