Sunflower Organic Dining

vegis and non-​vegis find a happy healthy place…
my trip to durango/​boulder thus far did not provide any great cuisine… until sunflower. yeah, all i got was the salad bar but everything was fresh (and the bar itself was immaculate) but i need to rave about their homemade vegan dressings — yum yum basil vinegarette! the salad bar also came with black bean soup that i tried and thought was very tasty — i’m just not a soup fan. my husband got the heartiest crab cake/​crawfish i had ever seen. for a side — greens or fries or «a little of both» suggested the server. «sold!» husband was very impressed by it all! we of course shared some panko crusted onion rings for an app — delicious sweet onion with just enough crispy batter.
the service was a tad slow and our server missed my husband’s pant leg by an inch when accidentally knocking over some hot sauce but other than that, the entire staff just seemed so happy to be there!

What a yummy brunch! We had passed this place several times while in Boulder, and decided to go for a good brunch before leaving on Sunday. Was definitely not disappointed! It’s all organic and natural– always a plus!
I had the salmon benedict– smoked salmon and poached eggs, on top of of spinach and… CORNBREAD! like a slab of it! It also came with potatoes– my goodness, it was such a great and filling meal! I couldn’t finish it, even though I really wanted to. My friend had the egg special– scrambled eggs, mozzerella, roasted red peppers, sandwiched in between two slices of crusty, thick bread. We also had the chocolate-​love drink=dark chocolate chai with a shot of espresso. Perfect!
Loved the atmosphere too– fun, cheery, and airy. Definitely a great place to have a delicious and healthy meal!

This is a great place to get a good taste of Boulder at any time of day.
Unique meals — some very Boulder — but you’re still getting plenty to eat, plus, yes they have meat too. Everything is presented and paired well with a good wine selection.
I really like the variety in the menu, you can mix and add plenty of vegetables or other sides to make a different meal every time.
Not immediately thought of, but this is a great place for brunch too.

Phenomenal. Came here for lunch and enjoyed everything from the outstandingly varied menu, great friendly service and overall environment. Really a nice time.
Food is to die for fresh and tasty. Nicoise Salad was really great — seared ahi tuna, freshest greens I’ve ever had, tangy taragon dressing. But my husband ordered the portabella sandwich which I continuously asked for bites of. Rich, tasty, fresh. The bread, roasted red pepper, portabella and goat cheese were top notch quality and superbly prepared. I’d go back just for that sandwich.
Prices are very reasonable and even tried a Cola that tasted just like Coke Classic called Oogave — finally a healthful alternative to a major weakness of mine. :)

Excellent lunch menu — Unlimited salad bar includes unlimited cups of soup, which were very good (seafood chowder) — really cool ingredients like babaganoush, hummus, arugula, basil vinaigrette dressings, quinoa pasta. Certainly one of the best salad bars I’ve ever had!
Salmon burger was certainly very flavorful as well.

Sunflower is a place to visit if you enjoy inventive cuisine. Organic, fresh ingredients, and the times I’ve visited, have never disappointed. Wine is pricy, and not terribly impressive in terms of selection, but if I wanted that, I’d head to a wine bar, or my basement.

Organic is great, but…
Excellent presentation, nice choice of menu items, everything was tasty.
Service was ok, wine list a rip off, HALF GLASS of wines for stupid prices.
Insulting and a turn off is an eating establishment that gouges it’s customers and tries to make it innovative. Priced fairly this review would be plus 1 or 2 stars. Saturday night at 8 the place was 50% empty, hmmm.

I think the entrees at Sunflower are top notch. There are a variety of vegetarian and non typical healthy entrees to try. They have a decent selection of wines as well. We enjoyed a really good seitan stuffed zucchini.
I enjoy coming for a weekend brunch on the patio…

Sunflower or Sunsuck… you take your pick. I choose the latter.
My company’s holiday lunch was hosted here. I feel bad for making the recommendation because I pride myself on knowing restaurants. Having heard good things, but never having tried the place, I thought the place at least had a fair chance.
Starting with the service. What service? The restaurant was empty of patrons and apparently of servers. Ours kept disappearing for such long lengths of time that I had to pull him aside and have a conversation about what decent service consisted of. Oh like maybe showing up at the table for drink orders within a 10 minute period of sitting-​I would of said two minutes, but that seemed to be stretching it for him.
The food portions were small and unimpressive. The burgers could have fit in the palm of my hand, and I have small hands. My Pad Thai was flavorless. Only redeeming thing about the meal were the desserts that were a little more than mediocre.
Luckily, I have since redeemed myself at my company for suggesting this place to celebrate the holidays.

A organic restaurant with interesting and unique food options. Unfortunately many of the items scared me it was a bit to out there so I didn’t enjoy all of the food.
For this type of food I prefer the Leaf vegetarian restaurant

Our waiter was possibly the best part of my experience here. He had these insanely huge eyes, and a clear desire to help myself and my mother in every possible way. His explanation of the specials was like a performance art piece. I don’t know what IT is but he’s got it! I don’t remember his name but hope you get him if you dine here.
I had a seitan sandwich with some delicious veggies and a sauce that made me go, «hmmm… mmmm» as in I thought about it for a second, then decided that yes, this is good. Real good.
The fries were great and crispy and the veganaise was better than any mayonnaise I’ve ever had. So many options, vegan, vegetarian, omni, and they all sounded incredible. My mother enjoyed her meal as well.
That sandwich blew my mind. The sauce on the sandwich, which I can’t remember, was so good and interesting that I can still taste it even at this moment. Everything tasted really fresh, like a Grand-​Master Flash mixtape. It was not too expensive either for the level of quality.

There is certainly no shortage of place to eat on Pearl Street in Boulder. Depending on what you desire, you do have choices. If you are looking for good vegetarian food, Sunflower would be one of your choices. A pleasant atmosphere with fine service. The menu has something for all tastes, even a couple of nice spicy Thai type offerings.
The Saturday afternoon I was there with a friend the service was a bit slow as the place was packed, but the quality of the food was worth the wait. They also have great honey for your tea.
Sunflower is in the newer section of Pearl St., a few blocks from the more bustling area.
Like I mentioned, there are numerous places to eat and all have their own niche, try this one, you will probably like it.

To be honest, I’m not really an «organic foodie». Yes, I’ll shop at Whole foods on occasion, but when things are 20% more expensive I start to question why I’m spending the extra money — when you have 3 teenage kids to feed the extra cost really grows.
But when taking a group of seven to lunch that range from vegetarians to beef eaters with a few food allergies thrown in, cost is less of an issue than making sure everyone has a good dining experience.
I couldn’t have picked a better place for that. And I ended up coming back the next night — hosting a group of 5.
They have a very good mix of dishes on the menu — there will be something on the menu for everyone. The lunch service was excellent. And when one person ordered the Pad Thai and it contained sesame seeds (one of the allergies) they immediately took the dish away and brought him something else without even a single dirty look.
Dinner service was, well, not so good. The room was not full, but we waited a long time. I watched our waiter take another table’s dinner order before ours even though we were seated 10 minutes earlier. We had consumed an appetizer, two servings of bread, and half of our wine before he got back to us about our entrée order.
Prices are a little high. The food is delicious and favorable, but not spectacular.
The crowd was young, engaging, a little lively without being too loud. It worked out well for having discussions with clients over lunch and dinner. The volume of the room was just right.
The full bar is well stocked. They even have Hendrick’s Gin — very nice. And the woman behind the bar was great to talk with while waiting for my guests to arrive.
Good wine list — not too extensive and some very nice selections at reasonable (for a restaurant) prices.
Was going to give 4 stars for the lunch, but the dinner service dropped them to 3.
I will go back. Maybe thy will go back up to 4 after that.

Gluten-​free friendly and knowledgeable.
This is the only place we’ve found in Boulder where you can get a truly gluten-​free meal.
You will never find out that your vegetables were cut up on the same board as bread (NOT gluten-​free!) or that something was fried in the same oil as breaded items (definitely not gluten-​free) or that it contains soy sauce (wheat!) or malt vinegar.

A place where my meat eating friends and I can dine in perfect harmony! Also my new favorite restaurant in Boulder.
Sunflower is the perfect mix of crunchy hippie veggie organic and good, tasty, filling comfort food.
Yes its expensive, but worth every penny and you’ll definitely have leftovers to take home– servings are huge and the food is filling!
Great selection off beer, wine, and liquor.
Salads are huge and fresh and delicious.
The mushroom risotto is out of this world– it has chunks of apple and brie in it.
The Veggie Korma is also unique, delicious, and filling.
Sunflower is not the kind of place I can afford except for special occasions. But it is truly wonderful!

Organic and local ingredients? My kind of place. If only they could translate that onto the plate.
First off, when I ordered my latte, the waiter asked if I wanted it with soy or cow’s milk. Cow’s milk? Look Sunflower — if i’m coming into your restaurant, i’m sympathetic to your style. No need to force it on the customer. Way to make a non-​vegan feel comfortable!
My food was ok. I got the bass, it tasted like bass. It came with coconut rice, it tasted like solid coconut juice aka overpowering. I liked the salad though. If only the salad were bigger than four bites (no exaggeraiton).
My friends Seared Ahi was great. Really great. Why we ordered two fish dishes in the middle of the rockies I don’t know. But at least they got one right.
Her meal also came with spicy curried cous cous. Which was really spicy and really tasty.
The service was ok. Nothing memorable, except the waiter did thank us 6, yes 6 times inbetween delivering our check and us walking out of the restaurant (a total of 3 minutes). I still haven’t decided if that was nice, creepy, or just desperate.
Lastly, the price. I have an issue with expensive restaurants who inevitably charge you over 30/​plate and give you half a meal. I’m a small girl, it doesn’t take much to fill me, but I could have eaten 3 plates with those serving sizes.
Overall it has potentental. It is overpriced for the portions and definitely for the food quality. They need to work on their flavor ratios and then i’d go back. Its local/​organic! But until then…

I always give extra-​credit to dining establishments that use organic or locally-​sourced products and Sunflower is one of them. Unfortunately, the food didn’t impress so it ranks as average in my book. I ordered the venison tenderloin which was incredibly undercooked, practically fresh from the butcher. They also served a custom yam (or sweet potato?) spread to put on our bread. Too bad it didn’t have much flavor.
On a positive side, the service was really enthusiastic, so much so that he was a source of amusement at our table. I’m thinking our waiter is an aspiring actor because I have never met anyone, including my fellow foodies, who spoke so passionately about the entrees and wines. At least entertainment was included.

12.22.07 update: There’s been a new owner here for awhile now. It seems like they’re trying to keep it pretty much the same, but recently they raised the prices. I think this was bad form. The prices were already a bit too high even for the Boulder Pearl St. area. Sure, they do serve well-​made quality food, but as I cannot emphasize enough, raising prices that were already too high does not make good business sense. Now, here is my original review, unedited:
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Love the Sunday Brunch menu here, and the Miso Soup. I’m always so pleased when I end up going here to eat, alone or with friends, and Miso is the soup du jour!
Being somewhat easy to please, I am yet frequently disappointed in Boulder. If that last sentence makes sense to you, please be my Unilocal friend! We just might be on the same wavelength, you and I.
Their salad bar, although always good, could do with a bit of creativity… even if the positions of the items could be changed. you know… just something a little bit different. I do usually get the salad bar with my meal. Have been for dinner with friends 3 times over the Sunflower’s many years.
I will never go there again with one particularly finnicky friend who made such a scene that the alienated chef came right to our table to defend himself. How horrible was that? I had to go hide in the restroom. Yikes!!!
Anyway, this is a great restaurant. I’m not a drinker but they seem to have a marvelous selection of organic wines. The smoothies are nice, and the water is purified.
The vegetarian food is well-​prepared and there are often new selections offered as specials.
The prices are a bit high, probably due to ungodly Pearl St. rents, which is why I’ve reserved the elusive 5^th star.
The service is usually tip-​top here and when it’s not too busy one receives a friendly greeting when entering as well.

My girlfriends and I go here for the lunch time salad buffet… It is all you can eat organic and homemade goodness and includes the soup of the day. Sunflowers can be pricey due to the organic and wholesome quality of the food, so the salad bar is a great way for us to enjoy quality food without the stress of Whole Foods crowds. (However, you do have to sacrifice the awesome «check that guy out» scene when you decide not to go to Whole Foods… Anyway, off subject).
Sunflowers is known all over the Colorado Front Range and is a great place to bring out-​of-​town guests… As long as they are paying.
* Star Mr. one is for offering a green haven resource for healthy eats and delicious organic treats
** Hello star two, he is awarded to Sunflowers for their large menu, which will satisfy both the pickiest vegans and roaring carnivores
*** Star three is for rockin’ homemade salad dressings that are perfect for dipping
**** Last but not least is star numero four for the restaurant’s affordable lunch time menu items
Star five was stripped due to the high prices.

Lovely east Pearl Street restaurant featuring organic and vegetarian fare. We had our wedding rehersal in the small private room in the back and they took very good care of us.
On our most recent visit, hubby had the Black Tea encrusted Elk Tenderloin (which was incredible) and I had a coconut steamed basket of veggies, chicken and noodles (which was also very good). They also have a fresh juice bar, from which I ordered a fresh piña colada, it was fantastic (better than what I’ve had in the islands) except it turns out I must be allergic to some super-​fresh juice. I suspect the pineapple. But I don’t hold that agaist Sunflower. =)
I had to take away one star though due to the fact that they just recently started serving breakfast and its really terrible. No one liked anything they ordered. Everything had the wrong texture and flavor. Perhaps they are still working out the kinks, but for now I’d stay steer clear of breakfast and come back for lunch and dinner.