If you’ve been looking for a not-so-greasy and very green lunch break option, look no further.
Fresh! An Urban Eatery held its grand opening on Monday, featuring a salad bar, build-your-own sandwich options and more. Owners Phillip Naylor and Pam Jones have been friends for years and about four months ago began the process of opening their own restaurant where Old World Pizza was previously located at 1706 W. 3rd St.
“I had gastric sleeve surgery over a year ago and lost 160 pounds,” Naylor said. “I had trouble finding healthy options and it’s important I get nutritious food.”
So Naylor and Jones took that problem into their own hands.
“Everything is fresh, and we have some produce from local farms,” said Naylor, who also holds a full time job as nurse.
The restaurant is almost “like a fruit and vegetable stand” according to Jones and soon she would like to open a small market area in the restaurant.
In addition to the salads and sandwiches, Fresh offers custom single-serve pizzas including an avocado and egg breakfast pizza and Jones described much of their food as “savory rather than sweet.” For example, the tuna salad is olive-oil based rather than mayonnaise based.
Currently, the restaurant’s hours are 7 a.m.-2 p.m., Monday-Friday but they hope to extend those hours and expand the menu in the future.
“We like our base menu but we may do Facebook specials where we make something and the first 20 get it so it’s first come first serve,” Naylor said. “We want to bring the public in on this as well.”
Eventually, they hope to have suggestion cards available and possibly a competition to gather more recipes for the restaurant.
The bright green-painted restaurant is also making efforts to be green. They even use recycled tissue paper.
For more information about Fresh you can visit their Facebook page.