GOVINDA'S GETS NEW LIFE ON RIVER ROAD.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

It may not be quite what you think.

Govinda's Vegetarian Buffet, a new restaurant at 1030 River Road, has roots that run deep into the culinary and spiritual beliefs of the Hare Krishna movement.

But if you're picturing finger cymbals, robes and airport lobbies, you're well off the mark.

"That's pretty much history," says David Minor, who opened the restaurant earlier this month. "The movement's evolved. Krishna consciousness has expanded all over the world, and it's like a tree - there are so many branches. But it's always stuck to the principles."

Those would include healthfulness and spirituality, which is where the restaurant comes in.

Govinda's restaurants can be found worldwide, operated independently either by temples or - as in Minor's case - by individual devotees. There is no set menu or format, although most offer at least some East Indian dishes. None serve foods with meat, fish, eggs, onions or garlic - all of which are considered either physically or spiritually harmful.

"One of the primary activities of (Hare Krishna) devotees is to prepare, offer food to God and distribute it," Minor says. "We have guidelines that our spiritual master gave us, in terms of diet and how to offer the food."

The River Road restaurant - in a building that previously held the Ali Baba Corner Cafe and started out long ago as a Dairy Queen - features an extensive salad bar with six varieties of homemade dressing, a steam table with brown and basmati rice, mixed vegetables with curry spice and pasta with various sauces, Indian lentil and vegetable soups, and homemade breads and desserts.

The buffet - which Minor describes as "all you care to eat" - is $7.95 for adults, $6.95 for seniors and $4.95 for children.

The restaurant already is drawing lunch and dinner crowds, he says, thanks in large part to the good reputation of a previous Govinda's restaurant in Eugene. That establishment - at 270 W. Eighth Ave., across from the WOW Hall - closed in September 2002 when its proprietor moved to California.

"I haven't advertised yet, and we've been quite busy," Minor says. "Govinda's had a big following from before, and I have to thank my friends (who ran the previous restaurant) for that."

Minor has previously operated Govinda's restaurants in three Canadian cities - Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver - but moved to Eugene 14 years ago with the intention of helping to establish a Hare Krishna temple.

Those plans didn't work out, and he has been operating his own used car lot - Minor's Motors, on River Road - for more than a dozen years.

With help from friends and his family, Minor started converting the restaurant about six months ago and is now phasing out of the car business.

He's operating the new restaurant with his wife, Josine; son, Barry, and a few friends who help out part-time.

The family put about $50,000 into the venture - they're leasing the building from Ali Baba owners Farid and Fatima Hassan - and repainted the interior in "juicy mango" and olive green colors, with tile floors. Pictures of Govinda - another name for Krishna, or God - adorn the walls, and "nice, devotional chanting music" is played to create a serene dining setting, Minor says.

Still, he says, the restaurant is geared toward any diners interested in a healthy vegetarian meal. There are no sermons or preaching, but the food may do its own talking.

"We're not trying to proselytize here," Minor says. "But (customers') consciousness actually will be uplifted. If you come into contact with something that's spiritual, you benefit - either knowingly or unknowingly."