Fast Food Without The Guilt
Energy Kitchen takes the guesswork out of eating healthy.
Lindsay Sport

Energy Kitchen is a healthy fast-casual brand serves breakfast, lunch and dinner with no menu items more than 500 calories. The success of the brand speaks for itself. Energy Kitchen now stands at 8 locations across Manhattan and one location in New Jersey.

Looking to eat healthy in the quick-service food industry? Order a salad and spend the next half hour scooping off the mounds of bacon, cheese and fatty dressings, or painstakingly order a grilled chicken sandwich while the juicy cheeseburger beams from the illuminated menu.

For those looking to maintain a healthy lifestyle, finding acceptable fast food options can be a daunting task. The offerings are minimal, with temptations abundant at every turn. To avoid the countless challenges, many refrain from fast food altogether, assuming it offers nothing but shame and disappointment.

But who says fast food has to be fatty?

Not Energy Kitchen, a 5-year old Ñew York City-based concept that is blazing the way for fast, healthy food options at a valuable price. The healthy fast-casual brand serves breakfast, lunch and dinner with no menu items having more than 500 calories.

“What we offer is fast food without the guilt,” explains Anthony Leone, Energy Kitchen’s founder and president.

Energy Kitchen caters to the health-conscious consumer, serving low-calorie, low-fat items such as muffins, wraps, salads, soups, burgers and sandwiches, as well as entrees such as chicken marinara, yellowfin tuna steak and turkey meatloaf. The brand pairs meals with a varied list of nutritional sides, such as fresh vegetables, baked homestyle potatoes or creamed spinach, and also offers smoothies and healthy snacks for those on the go.

Unlike other restaurants, Energy Kitchen even works to prevent unhealthy decisions by only offering guilt-free options in their stores

“There’s really no temptation in our stores,” Leone says. “We don’t allow guests to mess up their routines, and we really try to take the thinking out of health.”

Every item is grilled, baked or steamed, never fried, without the use of butters or oils. All dressings are either fat-free or low calorie, cheese is low fat, milk is skim or soy and sodas are diet. Instead of fatty desserts and snacks, Energy Kitchen offers protein brownies, Pirate’s Booty or health bars.

Because, after all, the cornerstone of the Energy Kitchen brand is health, Leone says. A proclaimed “health nut” himself, Leone developed the brand out of his own frustration with the quick service food industry.

“I was working in New York on another restaurant concept, and I would go into delis and places and try to order egg whites in the morning, for example, and the first thing they’d do is put oil on the grill. Here I am trying to do right, and I just couldn’t get what I wanted,” Leone remembers. “And I just said to myself, ‘I can’t be the only person looking to eat right in a quick-service, fast-casual atmosphere at a good price point.’”

The success of the brand speaks for itself. Energy Kitchen now stands at eight locations across Manhattan and one location in New Jersey. The company even opened a flagship location in early December 2009, on 23rd street between 5th and 6th Avenues, which is equipped with a variety of new features such as a new lighting package and menu board.    

“People love it. They absolutely love it,” Leone says. “It’s our food, first and foremost. Our food is really good tasting food, and that definitely has added to our expansion and why people are so interested in us.”

This year, with the help of Steve Gardner, director of franchise sales and Development, Energy Kitchen has 15 new locations planned and an extended growth plan of 100 stores in the next 3 to 5 years, with an initial focus on urban markets in the Northeast.

Current Energy Kitchen locations average 1,300 square feet, but Leone says, as the brand branches out of New York and into markets where rents are less expensive, the brand has the flexibility to increase its footprint.

Energy Kitchen has come a long way from its first location in New York City 5 years go. Today, the brand stands strong with continued success on the horizon.

“Our concept has been received very well, and we are growing,” Leone says. “This is not a fad. It is a lifestyle choice that more and more consumers are making. We at Energy Kitchen make it easy while still providing great taste.”

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