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Community Corner

Square Cafe Grease Keeps Singer's Car Humming

Swissvale singer/songwriter Brenda Jean Searcy roams Pittsburgh and beyond in an '82 Mercedes running on pure vegetable oil - and the Square Cafe is donating the grease.

 

Filling up the car does not mean a trip to the gas station for Brenda Jean Searcy.

Instead, Searcy drives her 1982 Mercedes 302D Station Wagon around the corner from her Swissvale home to the Square Cafe, and asks owner Sherree Goldstein for all the grease in the kitchen. A quick filtering job later, and the grease goes straight into the gas tank, leaving the faint aroma of french fries in its wake.

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Searcy, 47, bought her car - now with 327,000 miles on the original engine and transmission - from a Georgia seller in 2007 after an exhaustive search.

"I really wanted this exact car," Searcy said. "The blue color, the colored hubcaps, the station wagon with the third seat."

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A drive to North Carolina led her to a shop that could do the work she needed, converting the sturdy Mercedes Diesel engine to run on a tank full of vegetable oil.

Three years later, a lot of grease and a nearly thirty-year-old car have taken Searcy around the country. As a professional singer/songwriter, she's driven (with plenty of spare veggie oil) far and wide to perform - this week, she'll be making the trek to Nashville for a gig. The fuel budget for this trip - and every day, for that matter - will be just about nothing, thanks to the grease.

When Searcy was in search of a regular grease supplier, a friend recommended she ask the Square Cafe, as she has been friends with Goldstein for 18 years. Instead of receiving money for the grease, the restaurant has magnets affixed to the sides of the car to state they're filling the tank.

"We were paying to have [our grease] removed at the time," Goldstein said. "It just worked out. We do it for environmentally friendly reasons and community reasons."

While running on vegetable oil does represent serious savings over the gas pump, it's not always the easiest way of getting around. Searcy has to plug her car into a power supply for one to two hours before leaving to heat the oil up to a usable temperature, and in the colder months, a gallon or two of Diesel must be added to the mixture to start the car up. Some extra maintenance is also required.

"It's a serious hobby," Searcy said.

Free fuel and a clean conscience, though, are worth the trouble.

"It's using a renewable resource," she said. "There are no wars being fought over vegetable oil."

Disclosure: Local Editor Stephanie Rex worked at the Square Cafe from 2005 to 2007.

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