Greg Guthrie, executive chef at Tidal Creek Co-op, has spent the past four months reworking the café’s hot bar and salad bar as well as the made-to-order items. The café now serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and offers customized catering as well.

Tidal Creek Café prepares everything from scratch daily, using organic and all-natural ingredients, locally sourced whenever possible, according to Guthrie. As the co-op states on its website, it avoids the use of any products with high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils and gives preference to fair-trade, free-range and non-GMO ingredients.

Breakfast bar items generally include local sausage and eggs, breakfast wraps, a potato dish, tofu scramble, tempeh bacon and vegan biscuits and gravy -- something Gutherie says customers are not likely to find anywhere else in Wilmington.

Several new sandwiches, burgers and flatbreads are now available, many created with the help of Guthrie’s vegan sous chef Alan Boyette. Some of the standout, according to Guthrie, are the tempeh reuben, the vegan veggie wrap and the bahn mi, a traditional Vietnamese sandwich.

Guthrie is the first to admit that he’s fairly new to vegan cooking. The Johnson & Wales graduate has worked at restaurants across the country, but never before has he been tasked with reworking a menu in which nearly half the items are vegan. He credits Boyette with guiding him through uncharted waters.

“It’s been fun to experiment with new ingredients and learn something new,” Guthrie said. “It’s all about imparting and infusing flavor.”

All of the café’s sandwiches come with a 10-ounce bowl that customers can fill with an item of their choice from the hot bar or salad bar.

“People have been really excited about that,” Guthrie said. “It gives them a chance to try something new each time.”

Guthrie says he will be reworking the café’s smoothie and bakery offerings next, so customers can anticipate those changes in the coming months.

“Now that we’re getting into the season for fresh fruit we’ll be able to do so much more,” he said.

Tidal Creek Café is open from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily at 5329 Oleander Drive.

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