CAMBRIDGE - Happen into the cafe that adjoins the Harvest Co-op in Central Square and you'll notice that something is different. Where once the floor was worn thin, it's now even. Faded primary colors are warm tones of beige. Ordinary tabletops that once held ordinary cups of coffee are surfaces made of sunflower seed husks that hold mugs of shade grown, organic, Fair Trade joe.
In short, what used to be grubby is now sophisticated and enlightened. The former Harvest Cafe has become the new Clear Conscience Cafe. The owners aren't just out to make a buck on the WiFi and latte crowd; they're in it for social change and sustainability through food. Owners Daniel Goldstein and Jack Kutner are even seeking LEED certification for the cafe's construction because of its energy efficiency.
All the food, coffee, and tea at Clear Conscience is organic, except the pastries, which Goldstein says are cost-prohibitive to make with organic products. Young workers take on the title "environmental steward" rather than "barista," or "server," and are required to memorize a 10-page glossary of terms (such as "F.S.C." Forest Stewardship Council, or sustainably harvested woods).
However, this isn't necessarily why you should come in, according to Goldstein. "I think the coffee I've chosen is the best coffee in Central Square. To the consumer, this shouldn't be a philanthropic endeavor," he says. "If you have an interest in proselytizing, you have to be better than the competition."
In Central Square, that competition is stiff. A
Clear Conscience coffee is dark, strong, and full-bodied - the kind that finds you vacuuming your car out 20 minutes later. The tea, as well, has character. Goldstein declines to say where either is coming from; he is putting his own label on both. The cafe also sells sandwiches and salads. The "Healthier than thou" sandwiches and panini range from roast turkey with apple, cheddar, sauteed onion, lettuce, and cranberry mustard ($6.99) to peanut butter, banana, and honey ($4.75). Bagels are shipped in fresh from Concord each morning, and meet the standards of Goldstein, a New Yorker.
Neither Goldstein nor Kutner has been in the restaurant business before. As dropouts from corporate America, the two joined forces on other environmental ventures in the past. They started with an environmentally-friendly dry cleaning business, Cleaner By Nature, and have since invested in wind farms. Most recently, and perhaps most visibly, they now provide municipal trash bins with built-in compacters that are powered by the sun to Bay State towns and beyond, thereby decreasing the frequency of collection and, hopefully, overall energy and emissions.
"There can't be a shortage of ways we can make incremental changes," said Goldstein, who is the active manager of the cafe while Kutner oversees Big Belly, the trash can business.
Coffee, said Goldstein, is big business. Buying the kind he sells is one of those incremental changes he advocates. When you put your money down, you're setting it on a countertop made from crushed beer bottles. When you pick up your sandwich, it's from a surface made of bamboo and wheat flour.
Goldstein had not intended to take over the Harvest Cafe but rather to open up shop two doors down. When he learned that the Harvest was having some financial difficulty, however, he approached the managers and struck a deal that is good for both parties.
"We share a mutual idealism," he says.
Clear Conscience Cafe, 581 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square, Cambridge, 617-661-1580. 
