This week we headed out to Scranton, Pennsylvania for a visit to Steamtown, a national historic site. We are totally into trains in this house and my sister-in-law told us about this amazing museum that has huge train cars and a working roundhouse. In the spring and summer the trains run so we will be going back for sure. We saw all kinds of trains including box cars and a Pullman luxury car that came equipped with a kitchen! Steamtown works to preserve America’s industrial history and the National Park Service has done an awesome job.
Eating vegan on the road isn’t always easy so I went to Happy Cow and googled around a bit. There is no Whole Foods anywhere in sight, which is our default, and only one vegan restaurant in Scranton itself. Lucky for us, Nucleus Raw Foods, an awesome, rawsome place in Luzerne, is only 20 minutes from Scranton, and so it was our first stop.
Dan, the owner and a super cool dude, greeted us with a great big smile and a big “We are grateful for your business!” We got to talking and he said that Nucleus is probably the cleanest eats within a few hundred miles in all directions. It’s a big hit in the small town of Luzerne and it’s delicious!
Nucleus is in a nondescript blue building without even a sign on the door. The interior is very cheery with yellow and green walls that are lined with local art and a big book shelf stocked with lots of raw nuts, kale chips, spirulina, and two of our favorite books: Autobiography of a Yogi and Be Here Now. Even the WIFI password was super cool!
The menu is printed on brown bags (see above) with a variety of creative dishes to choose from. Smoothies, juices, salads, open faced sandwiches, lasagna and more. We finally narrowed it down to sandwiches that were served on Nucleus’ homemade delicious crispy carrot-buckwheat-flax bread.
I got the “toona.” Toona! It’s made from cashews and dulse. It came smothered in Nucleus’ signature white sauce (cashews, lemon, salt and pepper) and tons of grated carrots.
My husband got the “tacos” which are made from spiced walnut meat. He loved it so much he didn’t want the meal to end!
My son got a big bowl of “fronana” which is, of course, 100% banana. It’s put through a juicer so the texture is super smooth and creamy. We topped it with an on-the-house helping of date caramel sauce. Super ice cream sundae!
We loved every bite of our meals and even took an order of the crispy carrot-buckwheat-flax bread for the road. That is 5 in that box and we ate 2 before we pulled out of the parking spot.
We loved our time in Scranton especially when we found this guy partying at our hotel for St. Patrick’s Day!
After our day at Steamtown, where did we go for lunch? Back to Nucleus. My husband had the tacos again, my son had the fronana, and I had a Chocolate Delight Smoothie which was made with banana, maca, cashews and cacao nibs.
Since we we got right back on the road to head home, we picked up a few more treats. This time we took bags of raw nuts that Dan says he gets from the his favorite wholesaler, Natural Zing, and some homemade Peppermint Patricias, which tasted just like Thin Mints but better.
If you ever find yourself heading to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area, check out Nucleus. You will love it!