This post is about the emergence of Sustainaboule, who we are, what we do, and what we believe in. Our story, plain and simple. It might turn into a super mega ultra long post or it might become a series spanning several parts.
I, who am eagerly wielding the digital pen, am Leo Brood Björk, and I have recently become a co-owner of Globe AB, which will soon open the restaurant Sustainaboule together with friends and co-owners Ringo Nilsson and Hosam “Sammy” Adra. Each of us will be introduced more deeply in the future, but for now, it’s story time. The three friends Ringo, Sammy, and Leo have only known each other since adulthood, and barely even long enough to accept the friend label that I’ve just besmirched us with. Reprimand might be in store for me.
The first contact among us three was when I encountered Ringo through a computer screen about two years ago. So, I didn’t encounter Ringo in the sense of a potential romantic partner, it wasn’t Tinder or Grindr, it was purely professional. At that time, I was working as a Pétanque Manager at Boulebar. Pétanque is the French name for the sport/game of boules, and I was knee-deep in recruiting boule guides for the approaching high season. Yes, high season. There had been a darn lot of applications, and I had developed a relatively grand ability to sift through the gold nuggets from the pebbles, and Ringo’s CV was definitely more golden and cute than pebbly and plain. The CV itself wasn’t fantastic, but his story about how he helped a lady at the grocery store lift the right cereal box was an appreciated and humorous addition to the standardized questions on the application. This, combined with Ringo’s name and his black-and-white photo with flowing hair that would make Fabio green with envy, probably engraved the interview into stone like never before.
Fast forward a few months, and Ringo is now the bar manager at Boulebar in Rålambshovsparken, where I was also temporarily stationed over the summer. His authority and resourcefulness were something I had noticed early on, but it was new to see how he worked behind the bar. So meticulous with all the ingredients, nothing went to waste. Lemon and orange peels, cucumber ends, mint stems, and everything else that usually ends up in the trash, Ringo cherished like a new mother cherishes her newborn. He crafted new products from the leftovers, such as syrups, sugar solutions, and God knows what else, which later became part of balanced drink creations. It was so natural and obvious, and I was fascinated. We bonded over our dysfunctional food system, the increasing gap in food production, monoculture, pesticides, fertilizers, and waste, to name a few things. Our paths diverged after a while when I returned to my regular unit, and Ringo shortly thereafter quit to study gardening.
Fast forward even further, about 1.5 years ahead. I had recently quit Boulebar for various reasons. Among other things, for a winter in Southeast Asia where I would coach the junior national team during the boules World Championships in Bangkok. During the trip, I began to explore opportunities to work with sustainability, my true passion. Towards the end of the trip, I received a call from Ringo. He had just become a father and was on parental leave after working at Plåtparken, a pop-up container park with a restaurant, bar, and nightclub in Kista. The collaboration between the landlord and Plåtparken had ceased, and there was an opportunity for Ringo to take over the operation. The timing was fantastic, and boy, did I get excited about the idea of a project with Ringo. It became an intense period with many long days at Fern & Fika, a cozy café in Söder with plant-based and gluten-free food, where we crafted a business plan for a sustainable and circular restaurant. During this period, we got to know Sammy, who worked at the café. Sammy is from Australia and had started a plant-based restaurant just before covid before moving to Sweden with his wife and their two children. Sammy is a trained chef, designer, and has worked in marketing. It was basically love at first sight, and for the sake of the business, it was a match made in heaven.
Plåtparken’s concept was like a youth center but for adults. There were ping-pong tables, darts, arcade games, and boules courts. Boules is the coolest sport in the world. I say sport now. Game according to many, sport according to some, play according to others. As a former national team player, coach, Swedish champion, and with over 30 years of experience in sports/games, it was a no-brainer, yes clearly a no-brainer to combine our restaurant concept with a fun, social, and inclusive activity.
Our entire restaurant concept is based on sustainability. We believe that the restaurant industry and people can and want to be sustainable, for real. Here, we create creative, nutritious, and delicious dishes where every bite should be an effort for the earth! Our vision is a zero-waste and climate-positive restaurant industry, starting with our mission to become Sweden’s most sustainable and first zero-waste restaurant. All three of us are ridiculously amused by puns like only a dad can be. Cheesy, as my sister would say. Fun, we think. When I came up with the slogan: “It’s sustainaboule!” I giggled to myself for several minutes. It resulted in a name change. If all goes as planned now, knock on recycled wood, our baby and lifestyle business will open its doors to the public in about three weeks. May it be the catalyst that the world (oh no, no grandiosity here) needs to transition to a sustainable food industry and restaurant industry. As desperately needed. May this be the beginning of an adventure. Of long friendship, a journey filled with failure, mistakes, learning, joy, and curiosity. I feel incredibly grateful to be on this journey with Ringo and Sammy. I hope that you, who have made it all the way to this paragraph, want to grow with us! See you at Sustainaboule in Kista or on our social media. Tooodalooo.
– Leo
English 
Swedish