This sandwich started in Hadley, MA this summer. Andrea of Valley Malt grew 4000lbs of black beans. She wrote to us to see if we’d like to use them. I had honestly never heard of local black beans until this year. Never thought of them as a local product. We challenged ourselves to come up with a sandwich using black beans.

Enzo told us about how his dad, who is Venezuelan, would always make some kind of black bean dish at least once a week. He made us a spread using black beans, lime, cilantro, peppers, onions. We sourced cabbage, beets, and carrots from Red Fire and Queen’s Greens Farm. This sandwich uses sweet plantains, which means the plantains need to get nice and ripe before you use them. Chris figured out how to make crispy Jasmine rice, which gives the sandwich crunch.

We’re launching this companywide tomorrow (Thursday 2/12/15) at all restaurant locations. Use this post to give us your feedback!