Sustainable Baddie of the Week: Eleanor Heberlein

Walking around South Minneapolis in the summer you are guaranteed to see something of a summer fantasy unfolding. Kids on bikes and scooters, parents pushing strollers filled with wiley kids, and tons of recent college grads, students, and older folks taking walks around powderhorn park with picnic baskets in hand. It’s likely you may also pass by Eleanor Heberlein, speeding by on her bike headed to work at Minneapolis’ Tiny Diner. 

Photo: Tiny Diner exterior

Tiny Diner is nestled in the heart of South Minneapolis. It is a very unique site within the neighborhood. Built from an old gas station, the diner has an unusual amount of space to occupy for a restaurant. While the restaurant itself is inside of the old gas station building, the lot around it is now home to tons of small scale, permaculture gardens that provide the restaurant with its produce supply. When asked what makes the Tiny Diner unique,

Eleanor told me “We’re producing energy with our patio roof/solar array, increasing urban soil fertility, and creating a natural habitat for pollinators and urban wildlife in what’s basically our own backyard.” The garden and patio area of the diner is covered by solar panels that help provide energy for the restaurant, and the diner has a rooftop garden above.

Eleanor works for the Tiny Diner as their Garden and Farmers Market Manager, and Workshop Coordinator. For her, working at the Tiny Diner is all about getting her hands dirty, introducing diners to the world of permaculture, and creating a space for educators, creators, and experts to share their passion for the planet with the community. 

When talking to Eleanor, I realized that her work for the Tiny Diner is extremely varied and equally as valuable. She takes care of the garden and harvests all the produce that makes its way into the kitchen and onto customers' plates. She communicates with locally based vendors to give them space to showcase their products at the weekly farmers market, she creates programming to provide opportunities for the South Minneapolis community to learn about permaculture gardening, pollinators, basket weaving, and so much more. 

How does she find balance amidst all of her many responsibilities? For Eleanor, the balance is embedded in the job.

Photo: Eleanor Heberlein

“Gardening provides balance, and I can do the hands-on work that I want,” she explains. She helps to create visuals for the diners so they can understand that their food is coming directly from the gardens that they are sitting amidst. “There is something so rewarding about watching that click for the customers,” she told me.

Because the gardens surround the outdoor dining area the space was made intentionally for diners to enjoy. It is extremely kid friendly, and Eleanor gets to guide kids and families through the garden to introduce them to the plants growing around. Even for her, the realization that the seeds she is planting are growing into the food we are eating is rewarding. “We never grow out of that fascination. It feels like magic.”

Photo: Tiny Diner garden

When asked what values or ideas led her to her role at Tiny Diner Eleanor told me “all my experience is in food.” She designed her own major in college that was centered on food access and sustainable agriculture. Prior to the diner she worked at a local food shelf, coordinating the mobile food shelf distribution. She loved being embedded in the community in that role, and it showed her that she wanted to work in spaces where she could connect her community to agencies and resources for food access. 

At Tiny Diner, Eleanor is involved with the community through workshops and farmers market planning, but also gets to play a role in the gardening as well. Working with farmers market vendors and coordinating instructors for workshops allows her to connect with some really amazing, creative and passionate people in the South Minneapolis community. In her work at the garden Eleanor gets to show other people how they can grow their own foods themselves. All the gardens at Tiny Diner are made for small spaces and intentionally showcase examples of natural spaces that can be recreated in the urban environment of Minneapolis. We discussed the value of introducing the community to these green spaces and what this could mean for climate change in the long term.

Eleanor shared with me that as climate change grows it is likely that life on the coasts will become increasingly less habitual, and the midwest is possible to become a haven for natural environments. Places like Tiny Diner are a good example of how the midwest is preparing for this possible reality.

It is a hopeful intermixing of the metropolitan and natural and a redefining of how we have to exist on our planet. 

As Tiny Diner approaches its ten year anniversary, Eleanor expressed a fascination with just how “incredible and resilient the natural environment is – that from being a gas station it can bounce back to what it is now is inspirational for where our world is going.” In an age of defeat and anxiety, Eleanor’s sentiment meant a lot to me. The idea that we have the ability to transform our environments and bring them back to their natural beginnings is bursting with sentiments of hope. 

Towards the end of our conversation I asked Eleanor to share advice she would offer to anyone looking to find a career or job in the sustainability sector. She told me, “Anyone can do it! So much of it comes down to asking a lot of questions.” Eleanor explained that the best thing to do is to find places where you can be surrounded by people who are passionate about agriculture, food access, or whatever else it is that you want to pursue. “There are a lot of reasons to feel hopeless but when you talk to like-minded people you realize there are so many positive people who are hopeful and motivated to do their part. It's a lot easier and more welcoming than people think.”