Brenda Langton, owner and operator of Spoonriver was at the forefront of popular American vegetarian cooking when she began her career as a teenager in the early 1970s.  As the youngest member of the cooperative vegetarian restaurant, Commonplace, she was determined to learn the nuts and bolts of running the establishment.

Langton rose to the position of manager by the time she left Commonplace in 1976.  She then traveled to Europe where she spent the following year exploring markets and restaurants all over the continent, experiencing cuisine rooted in the finest local ingredients.  Upon her return, she opened Café Kardamena, a gourmet vegetarian restaurant in St. Paul’s Cathedral Hill district.  She was only twenty-one.  Over the next eight years she built her café into the premiere vegetarian restaurant of the Upper Midwest.  When demand outgrew the size of the restaurant she opened Café Brenda in the heart of the warehouse district in Minneapolis.  Café Brenda received national recognition as one of the finest restaurants in the country, and as an innovator in gourmet vegetarian cooking.  Jane and Michael Stern’s 1999 Gourmet Magazine column, Two For the Road, cited Langton as “a significant force in the health food movement.”  In and earlier review (1996) they noted that “Café Brenda is where elevated nutritional consciousness inspires the best kind of creativity, the kind that tastes good.”

In 1992 Langton published The Café Brenda Cookbook:  Redefining Seafood and Vegetarian Cuisine.  The book has become a popular standard for those seeking a healthy alternative in their own homes.

Over the years, Langton has immersed herself  in the study of macrobiotics, Eastern philosophies and ethnic cooking techniques.  Langton teaches cooking classes and consults on natural foods and healthy diets.

She operates her restaurants with her husband, Timothy Kane.  They live in Minneapolis with their daughter Celina.