NO TIME FOR HOME-COOKED MEALS? THESE COMPANIES HAVE A SOLUTION
It's the question that needs to be answered every night: "What's for dinner?" Sometimes you have the answer, but let's face it, a lot of times you don't, causing guilt to kick in as you pull up to the drive-through for the second time in a week.
Moms. Dads. There is hope. At least three new businesses are cropping up in Polk County aiming to make meals at home a lot easier.
The idea is this: Customers visit a cheerful store where they assemble healthy family-sized meals that can be broken down into individual portions. Prep stations with recipe cards attached to them are supplied with pre-sliced and diced ingredients to make dishes such as Chicken Marsala, glazed pork medallions, or even stuffed French toast. Entrees are wrapped and taken home, where they are either popped into the oven or placed in the freezer for later. Voila. A home-cooked meal without shopping, chopping or clean-up.
Make-and-take meal companies -- more than 400 of them -- have blossomed in other parts of the United States in the last couple of years and more are on the way, according to the Easy-Meal Prep Association, based in Cheyenne, Wyo., which monitors the burgeoning industry. With young families flourishing along the I-4 corridor, it was a matter of time before the latest meal craze hit Polk County. "Winter Haven is a young, dynamic place. We think this concept is a great fit for the community," says James Adkins, owner of Thyme for Dinner, The company, the first meal-prep company in the area, opened its doors on July 5.
Besides making dinners a no-brainer, part of the appeal of such places is changing a banal chore into a fun, interactive activity. "We're all about making it a social experience," says Adkins, who encourages participants to bring friends, bottles of wine and tunes to make the place seem like a real kitchen.
On its heels is Dinner Together in South Lakeland run by Kris and Debbie Werner and their kids Justin, 21, and Tana, 18. They also want their clients to do anything that would come naturally in their own home, including getting kids in on the action and relaxing with complimentary beverages.
Client Robin Turner, a wife and mother whose job in sales keeps her on the road a lot, says, "It's nice when I don't have to cook, but I get sick of eating out. I love the idea of coming home and popping something into the oven." She recently brought her husband along to Dinner Together and made the session into a date. "I'm not a great cook, but it's all there: the recipe, the food -- we put everything together and had a blast."
My Girlfriend's Kitchen, one of the bigger franchises with 16 stores nationally, is coming to the Lakeside Village in Lakeland in August. Owners Susan Peck and Lori Allen, both mothers and businesswomen, got the idea to open their own store when they visited a meal-prep place in Tampa.
"It saved our lives as working mothers," says Peck.
Like the others, there is a social component to My Girlfriend's Kitchen, with couches to hang out at and funky, retro decor. Peck says the concept is for those who just need a little more time during the week. "We're for those nights you have church or soccer practice. You put these in the oven and you're done."
At all three places, customers book ahead of time the number of meals they want to make during a session and choose from about a dozen entrees that rotate monthly. Though prices vary a bit, eight meals that feed four to six generally cost between $140 to $150.
Ryan Davis, a single professional from Winter Haven who recently booked a gathering with friends and family at Thyme for Dinne, says the meals work for his budget.
"The food is really good and cheaper than what you can get at the grocery," he says.
For an additional fee, the businesses also offer prepared meals for pick-up if patrons don't have time to assemble the meals themselves.
Amy Vasquez of Easy-Meal Prep Association says the dawning of the meal-prep concept started in 1999 with "Month of Meals" community cooking sessions in Carnation, Wash. The idea grew into its more modern incarnation in 2002 with Dream Dinners, based in Seattle, spawning hundreds of new meal-prep outlets eager to follow its lead. But even before that, Vasquez traces the idea to freezer clubs where housewives would gather in a friend's kitchen and make meals en masse for an entire month.
One possible reason meal-prep companies may be gaining speed is families are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of time spent together during meals. A recent study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that children who regularly ate with their parents were generally better behaved and more likely to do better in school.
Or, it could be people are simply looking for ways to have more family time at home. "People are busy, but there is a real need to bring the family back to the dinner table," says Vasquez. And unlike grabbing fast food on the way home, which can be a nutritional nightmare, meal-prep recipes can be tweaked and are usually constructed with health in mind. "You get to see what's going into your meal," says Vasquez. "You have control."
And for many working families and busy single people, that is all the incentive they need.
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Shelley Preston
Published July 20, 2006
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