- February 26, 2025
In an effort to go green, Lulu’s Oceanside Grille recently installed an electric car charger.
Lulu’s Oceanside Grille is going green. The coastal cuisine restaurant recently installed an electric car charger in their parking lot — the first in Ormond Beach.
“A year or so ago, we moved towards going green,” Co-owner Jeff Bartholomew said. “With the amount of people getting electric cars now, we wanted to be the first in town to do it. No one in Ormond has it yet.”
Bartholomew also said he hopes it will encourage people with electric cars to grab a bite at Lulu’s while they charge up.
“We have a lot of customers that drive electric cars,” Co-owner Ron Defilippo said. “So we thought it would be kind of a cool thing to add. We’ve had people plugging in already.”
In addition to the car charger, Lulu’s has other avenues to become more eco-friendly. They cook only sustainable fish, meaning they are from fishermen that abide by all the laws and don’t overfish. The restaurant also has a herb garden surrounding their building.
“We grow our own herbs outside,” Bartholomew said. “It helps with outside smells, makes it pleasant, people get hungry when they walk in and we can use them in the kitchen.
Lulu’s also recently switched to biodegradable takeout boxes.
“It’s a little more money but it helps the environment,” Bartholomew said. “Overall, it’s going to pay off for us in the long run. Save the environment now and we don’t have to worry about it later.”
Bartholomew also mentioned that Lulu’s recently purchased an electric golf cart that they will soon be driving up and down the beach as advertising instead of using planes.
“We’re gonna get people to see us and pass out free water,” Bartholomew said. “It helps us and helps people on the beach. So that saves a lot of gas.”
Bartholomew said the customers are taking notice. Within the first day of switching to biodegradable boxes, people were making positive comments.
“It helps us as a business,” Bartholomew said. “A lot of our business is based on cows, fish and chicken. If we can’t raise them in a safe way then it kind of defeats the purpose of me trying to sell it. The healthier we are and the better things we do, we are insuring we will be here longer. We want to bring the community together and do our part to save the world.”
“In order for us to be progressive,” Defilippo said, “we have to be progressive. Whether it’s our food, our drink, our decor, it’s important that we do our part. I think we are cutting-edge all the way, from our stuff to our staff to our community.”
