New Fast-Food Chain Brings Vegetarian Offerings to the Masses

In America, healthy food doesn’t sell. But that’s not stopping two former McDonald’s executives and Oprah Winfrey’s former personal chef, Art Smith, from launching Lyfe Kitchen, a new chain restaurant that'll aim to bring healthy food to the masses. Lyfe stands for “Love your food every day,” but the restaurant’s purposeful array of food choices seem to promote loving your body too. All menu item will contain less than 600 calories, and none of the food's fried.

This sounds like a worthy alternative to America's fast-food chains. But will the average Joe opt for a soy burger over a nice, greasy one? To attract more customers, Lyfe Kitchen is purposely avoiding words like “vegan,” “gluten-free,” and “dairy-free,” and is enlisting Art Smith and Tal Ronnen, celebrity chefs both, to develop recipes that cater to Americans' taste buds as well as their health. Like at Chipotle, orders at Lyfe Kitchen will take longer to serve and will be of higher quality than those served at other fast-food places.

Read the story at the Chicago Tribune, and look forward to trying a Niman Ranch beef burger, or a vegetarian one, at Lyfe's first restaurant, opening in Palo Alto, California (where else?), this summer. 

--Shirley Mak