CHICAGO - A new restaurant concept in Chicago by two former McDonald's executives and an Oprah celebrity chef is hoping to bring healthy eating to the masses.
The Chicago Tribune writes that Lyfe Kitchen, an acronym for Love Your Food Everyday, will be "a step up from fast food, fitting into the fast-casual segment where food is made to order, like at Panera Bread or Chipotle."
The first Lyfe Kitchen is scheduled to open this summer in Palo Alto, Calif., and within five years, the company hopes to have 250 locations nationwide.
The restaurateurs are banking 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," notes the Tribune.
"This isn't easy. If it was, someone would've done it already," Mike Roberts, chief executive of Lyfe Kitchen, said during at a recent tasting for investors. Roberts is the former president and COO of McDonald??s.
The Lyfe Kitchen won??t use ingredients such as butter, cream and high-fructose corn syrup, nor is any of the food fried. All of the menu items are less than 600 calories and desserts are expected to be dairy free.
Just because they build it, will the customers come?
According to Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of food-service strategies at WD Partners, 30 percent to 40 percent of consumers claim interest in healthier options, but only 10 percent are actually interested in health food, he told the newspaper.
"It's a niche market,'' said Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic, pointing to UFood Grill, a smoothie, wrap, salad and burger chain that opened three Chicago-area locations in recent years. "They've all closed," writes the newspaper.
"Consumers continue to use restaurants as an indulgence," Tristano told the newspaper, adding, "Nobody wants a better-quality burger. No one can sell soy burgers.''
For more information about nutrition in c-stores, check out the February 2011 cover story, "Uncover Nutrition," in NACS Magazine.