Primal Kitchen Restaurants: Coming to a Town Near You? (With Your Help, Yes.)

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For years, I’ve made the case for a particular way of eating: the Primal Blueprint. Based on nutrient-dense vegetables, fruits, animals, fish, nuts, seeds, tubers, herbs, spices, and fats, it recommends against consumption of a few foods — grains, refined sugar, seed oils, excess carbs — but is overall very inclusive. A person can live and eat very well drawing on the extensive list of recommended foods. Millions of people all over the world have embraced this way of eating and made radically positive transformations of their health without feeling “deprived.”

Those are the committed ones, though. The ones willing and able to overhaul their kitchens, purge their pantries, and cook every single day. This can be a big sacrifice entailing meal planning, budgeting, and transforming the way you shop for, look at, and think about food. Not everyone is ready to do that. Not everyone has the time. They turn to restaurants, or grab something quick from a cafe or deli. Worse, they hit the drive through.

For almost as many years as I’ve been writing this blog and these books, I’ve also dreamed about providing a very real and concrete outlet for people who want (and need) delicious, nutrient-dense food without always having to make it themselves: a Primal restaurant. As much as this movement has grown, it’s still young, still small. Most people don’t know about it, and although restaurants are making initial overtures with gluten-free buns and lettuce wrapped burgers and salad options, the majority of quick and easy “on the go” options are of terrible quality. It’s easy to complain about the sad state of casual restaurants, but that doesn’t help the people who eat there. I wanted to help them.

But I couldn’t run a restaurant myself, let alone multiple restaurants all over the country. I had a company to lead, books and blogs to write, and friends and family to spend time with. So it remained a fantasy for years. The dreams didn’t go away, but they didn’t come to fruition — until I had a small realization.

I could leverage my knowhow, my connections, and my business instincts to make it easier for other people to open Primal restaurants in other cities. Instead of doing all the work myself — an impossible task — I would create a Primal restaurant platform and franchise it out to others. Not only does this bring delicious food to people desperate for nutrient-dense fare they don’t have to prepare, it opens up business opportunities to Primal enthusiasts who want to marry their passion to their livelihoods. It wins on multiple levels.

I’ve teamed up with Mario Altiery, president of Upside Group Franchise Consulting. Mario grew up in the food industry and is an accomplished chef who has launched multiple successful restaurant franchises. Over the years, he’s developed a system for creating successful restaurants and other businesses that scale to the franchise level. He knows how franchises succeed and how they fail. Together, we form a formidable team. I’ve hinted at it on social media, but today we’re rolling out the official announcement of Primal Kitchen Restaurants.

This isn’t a health food franchise. You won’t be selling cardboard burgers and dry rabbit salads. This is objectively delicious food that the average person won’t know is also good for them, just like how friends and family don’t believe you when you whip up a Primal recipe. I love great food, and I won’t settle for less. Neither should you or your future customers.

Why should you pursue a Primal Kitchen Restaurant franchise?

Because you recognize and want to celebrate the fact that food can be both delicious and nourishing, provided you use quality ingredients, fresh meat and produce. Primal Kitchen Restaurants won’t be hijacking taste buds and appropriating brain reward chemistry to compel food addictions, like processed food manufacturers employ food chemists to do. It will appeal to the the innate desire each of us have to consume nutrient-dense, delicious plants and animals.

Because you’re a firm believer in high-quality, uncompromisingly delicious food. For food to be truly worth your chewing time, it must nourish the soul and the body.

Because you’re sick and tired of what passes for grab-and-go restaurant food in this country. Because you hate seeing kids drinking fountain Coke, eating fries, and gorging on deep fried chicken fingers. People do want high-quality, gourmet food and you want to give it to them.

Because you want to be able to grab a quick bite to eat without breaking the bank or worrying about the quality of the ingredients used to make it — and you know others feel the same way.

Because you’ve been searching for a way to turn this Primal stuff you spend so much time on into a viable business.

Because you believe in the Primal message: that we owe it to ourselves, our health, and our gene expression to eat in accordance with our biology.

If you want to be a part of a restaurant revolution — or even if you just want to provide good food that you can believe in —  and you’d like more information on Primal Kitchen Restaurants, fill out this form and you’ll be contacted by a member of our staff with further details. (And if you have a friend that has always dreamed of opening a place where people can go to get delicious food that is also healthful, please pass this blog post along to them.)

I’m excited. My entire staff is excited. I can’t wait for the day that I can go to Phoenix for business and get a legitimate Big Ass Salad for lunch. Let’s make that happen!

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Filed under: Fitness