(Greenline, a new restaurant off the Square, is now open|Alice McKelvey)
Picture this: two eager young gentlemen standing on Van Buren Avenue in 2011, opening what is now a local favorite, South Depot Taco Shop. Now fast forward to 2015. Trey Horne and Wilson Hood are opening their second restaurant in Oxford: Greenline.
Located next door to South Depot, Greenline, which opened last week, is a new option for healthy eating. The restaurant offers salads, wraps and soup in a similar style to South Depot, where the customer is able to order from the menu or create their own unique combination.
“I think there are over 45 options on that line that you can put into a salad or a wrap. That’s kind of the foundation of it, letting people go in and build what they want,” Hood said. “We’ve also got seven or eight signature salads that are our take on popular salads or our own creations.”
The 2006 Ole Miss grads said the inspiration for this restaurant came from their travels around the Northeast and along the West coast. Hood said they began to notice a trend of places that offered healthier options when dining out. Hood and Horne enjoyed these kinds of restaurants themselves, and figured they’d open their own.
“It seemed kind of like the obvious choice for Oxford,” Hood said. “There’s nothing like it.”
When choosing a name for the restaurant, it was important that it be a simple representation of the restaurant’s core goals—food that is fresh, healthy and quick.
“When ‘Greenline’ came up early in the process, we knew it was our name,” Hood said. “It just felt right.”
During the early stages of the restaurant, it was important for Hood and Horne to continue the concept of a simple and fresh place to eat. Hood said his wife, Carter, played a large part in the development of Greenline, from hand-drawing the restaurant logo to helping make interior design and menu choices.
“She’s been an invaluable resource in so many areas,” Hood said. “We are so incredibly grateful for all of the help she’s given us.”
“This kind of concept is right up his alley,” Hood said. “He was an obvious person to lean on for his expertise.”
One thing that Hood termed as “non-negotiable” was the quality of the food for Greenline. South Depot sources food from Mississippi and Tennessee to get the best possible ingredients, something Hood and Horne felt was a priority to carry into Greenline.
“We spent a lot of time with food brokers and folks who have kind of done this before to try to figure out how to get the best possible ingredients,” Hood said. “It’s a big part of what we are trying to accomplish at Greenline, to give customers the freshest possible ingredients we can find.”
At Greenline, those ingredients are not only used to make the salads themselves, but everything — down to the last crouton. All of the soup and salad dressings are made in-house; nothing comes pre-packaged. Hood and Horne said they feel a restaurant built on the idea of being healthy should only serve the best quality of fresh food.
The assembly line can be a little overwhelming at first due to the number of options for greenery, protein, toppings and dressing, but Greenline gives the customer the opportunity to be as creative as they like with their salad or wrap.
A customer can choose a classic combination such as a chopped romaine salad with chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers and croutons or try something a little more exotic, like shredded kale with quinoa, artichokes and corn topped with one of the thirteen homemade dressings. Hood even has his own favorite combo: spinach with steak, sundried tomatoes, craisins, feta cheese and chickpeas.
