After a long hard night, all you want is a little love, a little sweetness, a lot of comfort. You want something to smooth out all of life's sharp edges. Toronto entrepreneurs have taken notice, and fought the good fight against corporate coffee-slingers Starbucks for your attention. Thanks to Dark Horse Espresso, Sam James Coffee Bar, Ezra's Pound and a handful of others, left-wing Torontonians stopped feeling guilty about enjoying cup upon cup of the caffeinated nectar. But environmentalist Becky Dooley, who likes her Joe with the best of us, felt the need to bring coffee to the masses without defiling our planet.

To Dooley, consumption is consumption – whether it is done in an independent café or not - and unless there are stringent measures taken to streamline waste then the environment will suffer from our disregard. While, we know this doesn’t scream zeitgeist, Dooley’s Green Grind takes environmentalism to heart. Call it alternative café 2.0.

With a master's degree in environmental studies and, of course, a pure love of the bean, Dooley maintains she has "done everything to make the eponymous Green Grind as green as possible." This isn’t code for simply tossing in biodegradable takeout cups (which, of course, she does), but everything from the reclaimed wood communal table to the coffee-stained flooring and the bamboo countertops to the low wattage, motion sensor lighting have been put in place by Dooley so that she could run a business and "feel good going to sleep at night" – that is if she hasn't had too much coffee.

Of course, if you've been to any organic, green friendly, or free trade shop in the city, you also know that consciousness comes at a cost. But, Dooley does her best to keep her prices in line with the other independent cafes in the city; the small loss in profits is well worth it if it means she is doing her part to give back to the world. And speaking of giving, what Green Grind gives to you is in-house roasted coffee from local growers Classic Coffee; fresh baked goods from schoolbus-cum-mobile, organic bakery, Local Café; and most importantly, the chance to "have your coffee and save it too." – E.H