Earlier this year a former executive for McDonalds, Mike Roberts was approached by investment banker Stephen Sidwell. Both agreed that the time was right for a healthy fast food option. LYFE ("Love Your Food Everyday") Kitchen is the name of a "transformational, socially responsible lifestyle brand" that is scheduled to open this summer in Palo Alto, California. If the launch goes well, they hope to open 250 more nationwide.
The key to any restaurants success of course is the food and if it doesn't taste good nobody will buy it. The two guys they hired to make this happen are Chef Art Smith, former personal chef to Oprah Winfrey, and Chef Tal Ronnen, who is a renowned vegan and vegetarian chef,and who prepared the first ever vegan meal for the US Senate.
Their expectation is that smart real estate decisions, carefully constructed marketing, philanthropy as a core principle and tasty food will push Lyfe to succeed where others have failed. Lyfe faces many hurdles, including the basic challenge of getting the average person in the door on a regular basis. Picking the right name was important as well; after looking at over 6000 choices they picked Lyfe.
No item on the menu will contain more than 600 calories, with each featuring responsibly sourced ingredients from local farms and sustainable whenever possible.
To me this is great for anyone contemplating eating not only vegan food but any healthy choice. I believe most think it is too hard and too time consuming to make the smart choice, but if this chain can succeed it should bring more people around. The time has come. To watch a video, click on the link below.
www.lyfekitchen.com
ChicagoTribune article, Feb, 2011
I hope LYFE does really well and brings one of their restaurants here. Then maybe I could finally have enough nerve to go vegan.This would be a great place to get people to know that being vegan and trying some of their food options isn't a bad thing after all.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those people, who thinks that going vegan will be very time consuming and expensive. However, if LYFE came around Ohio, I would definitely try it. It sounds like a very interesting restaurant idea and could really succeed with the right people backing it. I believe that we should have healthy choices at our local restaurants that taste great too!
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