Well, let me be the first to predict a menu shift we should have seen coming 15 years ago: lifestyle menus. We will see more operations that base their entire menu on lifestyle diets.
The embryo of this menu trend was first spotted in the early 2000’s when Ruby Tuesday stunned the industry when it boldly introduced a new separate menu featuring low-carb items. The setting for this was the low-carb craze that few of us industry old-timers will forget. It was a well-recognized national phenomenon that took the baking industry down for a time. Ruby Tuesday’s idea gave way to icons next to items that met the criteria of the moment. And to this day, icons for vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free are common menu inclusions.
What’s different now that changes everything is the emerging generation with their personalized nutrition expectations. Currently we see a small outbreak of menu items developed for lifestyles. Consider Chipotle’s Lifestyle Bowls launched in January (Paleo, Keto and Whole30). Blaze Pizza just launched a line of Life Mode pizzas (Keto, Protein, Vegan and Vegetarian).
But these are just baby steps toward where this is ultimately going. If we consider the functional-food oriented younger generation, we should look at what colleges and universities are doing to address the cause.
Earlier this year, Chartwells, the Compass Group contract management outfit that operates about 300 college and university dining facilities, launched its Fueling Your Unique Lifestyle program. It highlights foods with ingredients that make vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and keto so yesterday. Rather, Chartwells picked eight areas in which they could develop dishes that would provide purposeful benefits. To name a few, Immunity Boost dishes have antioxidant-rich ingredients; Love Your Heart options contain omega-3-fat-rich items; Improved Clarity options zero in on brain focus (think caffeine, herbs, spices and elixirs); Clean Eats items have no preservatives or additives; and Recovery foods is my favorite category. It’s not hangover recovery, but muscle recovery after heavy workouts. Chartwells’ executive chef pointed out to me pickle juice as a good recovery go-to. So they have developed 40 kinds of pickles!
These health-benefit labels appear at the beginning of the dish name, so students know the benefit right away.
While restaurants could learn from this and incorporate something similar, I think this is going to lead to a new (probably crowd-funded) genre of restaurant…lifestyle restaurants—beyond smoothie shops. LYFE Kitchen (with three units) could be considered the embryo for this idea. It labels many of its dishes with the lifestyle benefit, as in the breakfast Anti-Burnout Bowl, Paleo Power Start, Balance Bowl, Keto Scramble and Protein Pancakes.
But can we call lifestyle restaurants a trend yet? No, but we are going to see them. Perhaps Jamba will evolve to this. It took a baby step in June when it announced it was taking Juice out of its name and adding the tagline Smoothies, Juices, Bowls. But we need to see some operations with intentionally functional full menus.
Tell me what you think.
Jody
