An SFU Beedie School of Business lecturer is putting her money where her mouth is. Lisa Papania has opened a new vegetarian restaurant as the culmination of the courses she has been teaching for the past decade.

Papania is the founder of Lupii Café, which focuses on serving up sustainable, vegetarian options, with a menu that revolves around ingredients gathered daily. Overloaded stock or spare food from local farms and markets are sourced to make the dishes at Lupii, without waste becoming an issue.

Lupii Café is also a home for many community activities such as monthly community dinners, drop-ins for parents, a homework help club, and movie nights, all of which facilitate a fun atmosphere that anyone can enjoy.

Dr. Papania said that her background was essential in the creation of the café. “All of the courses I have taught for the last 10 years have been around social and environmental responsibility,” she said. “All of the courses I taught have been around understanding what happens to food waste.”

She noted that a major reason she created the café was to offer a space where people could meet each other and where new ideas could be adapted into actions that would benefit the community.

To that end, a lot of the projects going on under the café’s roof are focused around the people it serves.

“We have [a] community dinner which happens once per month. People can meet each other and form social networks. We get involved in community projects, like charity,” said Dr. Papania.

The café has also started a new initiative called “The Lupii Box,” a weekly delivery service. Fruits, vegetables, soups, and preserves can all be delivered to your door, helping to minimize the café’s waste.

According to Dr. Papania, 40 per cent of all food produced and distributed along the chain is wasted. While dumpster diving — the act of reclaiming food from the trash — has become a popular trend lately, The Lupii Box aims to eliminate that middle step and ensure that good food is reaching people who want to eat it.

Now that Lupii Café is up and running, it is going to focus on existing projects — like the Lupii Box and the community dinners — as well as remain open to the possibility of new, upcoming events.

Said Papania, “If people start getting connected, they will take more responsibility for what happens beyond themselves.”