For us, the cool thing is bringing plant-based food to the community. But we do it with a larger mission. When you walk through the door here, we’re plant-based, we’re palm oil free, we’re certified kosher, we have 100 percent compostable packaging, and we’re wind and solar powered.”

Kim Anderson

Plant City
188 County Road
Barrington, RI 02806
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Serial entrepreneur Kim Anderson and her family aspire to more than just building a business. They want to grow their business, while helping the environment, healing the world, setting good examples, and serving as role models.

Those are the not so modest missions at Plant City, the three-location enterprise that is nearing the one-year anniversary since it opened in the center of Barrington on July 3, 2024. Plant City’s cornerstone location, on South Main Street in Providence, also celebrated a milestone recently when it reopened following a period of reimagining and renovation. Of the newly revamped Providence food hall, Anderson said the customer experience will be “elevated through intentional design, deeper hospitality, and continued culinary creativity.”

The Barrington building underwent its own major transformation before opening a year ago — starting with raising the ceiling and removing the large exterior stones that once gave it a prehistoric look.  

“It looked like the building came right out of ‘The Flintstones,’ ” Anderson laughed. “I think it was actually referred to as the ‘Flintstone building’ because the whole front had these big rocks, and it was very low to the ground,” she explained.  

But, true to the Anderson mission, the upgrades did not stop at aesthetics. Modernizing the space also meant embracing sustainability. Like its predecessors — Plant City in Providence and Plant City X in Warwick — the Barrington restaurant runs entirely on solar and wind energy, uses only compostable materials, and serves a fully plant-based menu to reduce its environmental impact.

“For us, the cool thing is bringing plant-based food to the community. But we do it with a larger mission. When you walk through the door here, we’re plant-based, we’re palm oil free, we’re certified kosher, we have 100 percent compostable packaging, and we’re wind and solar powered,” said Anderson. 

Three plants, one goal  

“A plant-based diet dramatically reduces the amount of methane you contribute to the planet,” Anderson explained. “If I were to take a car and drive it straight up 13 miles, I’d bump into a thin blue line around Earth, and that thin line is what protects life on this planet,” she explained.  

She went on to describe how excess methane is getting trapped in that protective layer, intensifying climate change and what the food industry has to do with it. She said, “We started Plant City with the simple idea of showing what a sustainable and compassionate food system could really look like.” 

Each Plant City location — though vastly different from one another — was built with that mission in mind.  

The Providence location was the first, opening nearly six years ago. Like the others, it runs on wind and solar energy. But it also features something unique in the cellar: a partnership with “Plant Docs,” a program that allows real doctors to use the space to educate the public on plant-based nutrition. “We’re more than a restaurant. We want to share information,” Kim said.  

Plant City X in Warwick brings something new to the table as well. The location features ZEUS — a fully automated composting system. Food scraps go into a chute and ZEUS does the rest, even sorting contaminated waste. It’s the second ZEUS composter in Rhode Island — a 20-foot container developed by Ecotone Renewables that turns food waste into fertilizer, branded as “Soil Sauce.” Currently, only nine of these systems exist in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. 

This Warwick location also includes a drive-thru for customers who are on the go. Meanwhile, the Barrington location offers a different kind of uniqueness — one Anderson only came to fully understand nearing the end of a year after opening.  

Although Barrington did not have room for a drive-thru, Anderson noticed a surprising trend. “What’s really interesting is that 75 percent of our business at this location comes in and goes right back out — it’s primarily takeout orders,” she said. A large portion of that, she noted, comes from DoorDash. “There are like 18,000 people with a DoorDash Pass within 12 miles of this city,” she explained.  

Despite this, Anderson still envisions the space as a community-driven hub and ideal for meetups. She hopes more people will use it that way, but understands the convenience customers are looking for — and so, she continues to warmly greet the guests coming in for takeout and the DoorDash drivers as they come and go.  

For Anderson, it’s all about creating delicious environmentally friendly food, so regardless of how people get the food, she is happy. “I’ve got an amazing chef from New York City who moved here to be a consultant with us,” Anderson shared. “He was only supposed to stay for three months — it’s been six years,” she laughed. “I’ll say to him, ‘Oh, we should have a Reuben,’ and he’ll go make one. I’ll try it and say, ‘That’s really good.’ ”

For Anderson, everything about Plant City starts with really good food — good for people and good for the Earth.