Infinity Room: A taste that’s outer space

Summer and Stan Keightly want you to have a good meal and a good time. From the performers on their stage to the customers at their tables, the goal is a “delicious and substantial” meal, regardless of your diet. “I wanted to create a place where everybody could come together and eat,” Summer said. “I know not everyone is vegan, but almost everyone can eat vegan food.” The result is a menu thoughtfully considered, right down to the aquafaba used to create a perfect froth on the “Ginfinity Fizz” cocktail.

The newly opened Infinity Room is a partnership of two Salem places and four Salemites. Summer and Stan’s venue The Space merged with Capitol City Theater in 2019. Summer is the cook, and runs what is now the only 100% vegan kitchen and bar in town. Stan Keightly and Christopher Pelka provide the sound engineering for all the performers, and Emma Pace Jonas teaches improv and runs the comedy and booking end of the business.

Though the Infinity Room may be newer to Salem’s downtown, Summer and Stan have been feeding and entertaining Salem for more than a decade. They provided food for Level B Theater Pub during its operation, and opened The Space (with fellow Salemite Doug Hoffman) in West Salem in 2016, where they combined vegan food and live performance. In 2019, an opportunity arose to merge with Capitol City Theater, and it was the perfect time to make a change. The plan was to spend a month or so renovating their new space, then quickly reopen. COVID, as we all know, had other plans. That one-month renovation turned into a two-year project. “When we say every room in this building has been renovated by us, it’s true,” Summer said.

The result is a sleek, polished space that manages to remain quirky and playful. Local artwork pops against the pitch-black walls, and design details like the quartz bar-top keep it modern. The black backdrop allows the stage to shine, quite literally. Stan, an expert sound engineer, designed the unique wall to frame performers on all sides. Composed of a highly effective acoustic diffusion pattern, it doubles as a striking lighting element.

Chickpea Tenders, Burger with tots, Drumsticks

Summer’s delight in their renovated digs shines through in the food as well. She now has the space to create nearly everything on the menu in-house, from scratch. This includes sauces, soups, sourdough starter…even the fruit-infused vodka in the bar. Summer is especially keen on making their breads, something she lacked the space to do previously. And if you’re gluten-sensitive, Summer has that covered too. On a trip to Europe, she discovered that the wheat overseas didn’t wreak havoc on her digestion. So she found a local solution, and now purchases her flour from a source that imports Italian wheat.

A self-trained cook, Summer learned her craft out of necessity. When Summer and Stan discovered their oldest child had a dairy allergy, they had to pivot quickly. She created and curated dairy-free recipes at a time when vegan ingredients weren’t nearly as plentiful. Store offerings back then were largely limited to tofu and soy milk, so Summer created her own brand of delicious, homey, vegan food. She wrote and published the results in 2003’s, The Glad Cow Cookbook, which has had a huge influence on the Infinity Room’s menu.“I still use a lot of those tricks I taught myself to solve problems of lack of opportunity,” Summer said.

Summer says her menu will continue to evolve with the seasons. “It’s always going to change because I get bored really easily…and I really like using local things, so as we have more produce (that’s not just kale) then I’ll start doing more things.” But the attention and care she gives to those with allergies or food sensitivities will remain constant, as she’s planning to provide a binder for customers outlining any allergens on the menu.

The Infinity Room makes inclusion its mission. In addition to the lineup of comedians and musicians, there’s a weekend “drag brunch”, and of course open mic nights where the Salem community gets a chance to show off. The food itself is key to it all. “I feel strongly that we, as humans, usually connect over a table full of food…And if you leave people out of the ability to partake in the food part of that, they’re not going to hang out at the table as much. They lose connection and they lose feeling a part of things,” Summer said. Suffice to say, you won’t leave hungry.

Though it’s open mic night when I visit, I’m here for the food, and I’ve come hungry. I am also not vegan. But when our team dives into Summer’s menu, I’m treated to the same childlike joy I feel when I’m presented with a great burger and fries. Our order includes the Infinity Burger, made with a chickpea patty, served with tots and house-made vegan dipping sauce. The bun is soft, the burger is flavorful and satisfying, and the tots—sprinkled with Summer’s signature “space dust” seasoning—are downright addictive. But the table favorite could be the nachos, a tower of house-made tortilla chips, “cheezish” sauce, beans, and veg.

I’m a tad obsessed with that cheezish sauce, and Summer tells me her secrets, which involve oats and roasted red pepper. This is the kind of innovation that embodies Summer’s cooking ethos: food that tastes familiar, gives all the cozy happy feels, but leaves nobody out. So it’s fitting that when I ask Summer about her food inspiration, she references the Little House on the Prairie books, where people gathered around tables of fresh biscuits, homemade bread, and presumably a fair bit of meat. It’s that mood and nostalgia she wants to evoke, rather than the exact menu. “That’s my kind of food; if you went to your grandma’s house in the 60’s or 70’s, what would she just have laying around?” — Anne Lapour