Dove into a plate of Oaxaca Tacos last night at Cafe Flora, and was delighted to find that some things never change. The smoky depth and textural playfulness of that Flora perennial is just always satisfying. Also enjoyed a toss of farro with toasted hazelnuts, roasted oyster mushrooms, and glistening, ruby-red triangles of juicy blood orange. A festival.

“Where would we be without Flora?” asked my friend dreamily, the one who is married to a vegan and therefore depends on the place to provide regular relief from the hellish torments of cooking for him.

(While many of us omnivores read Flora’s menu labels of “vegan” and “gluten-free” as seriously buzz-killing code for “cardboardesque” and “flavorless,” I regularly marvel at how wrong my biases are once I actually taste them.)

BUT…all the love withstanding…what up with Flora’s remodel? “They took out the booths!” my friend shrieked on arrival. Apparently they’ll be putting some of them back in (in the area behind the entry), but the ones in front by the windows are history.

What’s more, they’ve been replaced by what looks like the siding of a seriously weathered barn. “It’s a fully sustainable remodel,” explained the host. “We all worked on it. The wood came from our favorite farm sources.”

Amen and hallelujah for sustainability, Flora. Only now the place has traded its patina of cool Left-Coast casual chic for seriously-weathered-barn. Which is fine if you go in for that sort of thing.

We sat in the atrium.