Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Amex HQ workers grow food for cafeteria
SUNRISE – Fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables are among the newly minted amenities at the American Express regional headquarters in Sunrise.
Completed in 2017, the new campus has added a special feature for its 3,000 employees: a community garden. Workers can clip rosemary, basil and thyme, take a few tomatoes home, or pick a Mamey, a tropical tree fruit that has a creamy, sweet texture.
Dubbed the “Good Thymes Garden” after a naming con-
test among employees, the 2,500-square foot edible garden has more than 25 types of herbs, fruits, vegetables and other edible produce. Some of the plants are indigenous to Central and South America.
The garden is mostly used to harvest herbs and fruits for the office’s Healthy Living Cafe. The company’s chef works closely with the garden’s caretakers to align the café’s menu with the seasonal harvest. Dishes have included lemongrass gulf shrimp ceviche, tomato spring onion rosemary tarts, and lemongrass aqua fresca, a cool drink that originates in Mexico.
“Oh, that’s from the garden!” employees will say at the cafe, recognizing certain herbs or other ingredients in specials of the day are from their community garden, according to Jason Deville. He is director of hospitality services for American Express’ regional hub in Sunrise and its Americas operation.
Workers can find “Good Thymes Garden” signs in the cafe to “showcase that we use fresh ingredients in our everyday cooking,” Deville said.
Deville also views the garden as a place for coworkers to mingle and bring American Express visitors. “Employees can come out here and unwind,” said Deville, who plans gardening and sustainability workshops for interested workers.
Parimala Rao, a manager in global billing, submitted the winning “Good Thymes” name. She recently started her own garden at home and was inspired to come up with a name that evoked sunlight and the aroma of fresh herbs.
“I think it’s an excellent idea to have a garden at the workplace. Eating at our Healthy Living Cafe makes it comforting. And the garden adds to the landscape of the complex,” said Rao, who said she likes to walk through the garden on workdays.
The garden has also been educational. Last week, children from the office’s backup day care, which is available to employees when caregivers are sick or school is closed, visited the garden to smell the fragrant mint and choose elements for a salad.
Deville, who formerly worked for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts before joining American Express in January, said the garden has been a “learning process” in finding which plants thrive in a location that is alternately subjected to full sun and drought with, lately, lots of rain.
But he has the help of a local landscaper who partnered with the company to create the garden, and the office’s maintenance crew and cafe staff.
The sustainability concept at the office extends to ornamental grass growing along a walkway to the garden and purple-flowered vines that climb and add a decorative touch to the office garage. The Sunrise campus was named an official Certified Wildlife Habitat site by the National Wildlife Federation and Florida Wildlife.
Elise Askenazi, spokeswoman for American Express, said the garden was part of the early planning for the company’s regional headquarters, one of the new office amenities that also include a bike-share program, a Starbucks coffee kiosk, and physical therapy services.
American Express acquired the 40-acre parcel in Sunrise in 2013 for $21.5 million from Coral Gablesbased Flagler Development. The modern glass building, on the southeast corner of Northwest 136th Street and Sunrise Boulevard, was under construction for two years, opening in early 2017.
Many of the employees who once worked in Plantation, Miramar and Miami moved to the Sunrise office. They work in customer service, travel-related services, marketing, human resources, legal services and other internal operation jobs.
The community garden may be catching on at other American Express offices that have made inquiries about the Sunrise Good Thymes Garden, Deville said. The company’s headquarters in New York has started a pilot garden for its cafe. “We’ve had a lot of people reaching out to find out what the process was in thinking about the same initiative in their locations,” he said.