Two new restaurants have been brought to the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus, adding to the dining options that include Chick-fil-A, Subway and the newly-opened Panda Express. Before these new additions, options for healthy foods were limited.
The Kitchen Café, a nonprofit lab and restaurant experience located in the ASU College of Health Solutions, had its grand opening in early February.
Kent Moody, the manager and head chef of The Kitchen Café, said that food service management is taught mostly to health and solution students in the Café.
Moody said the restaurant’s aim is to “have a real-life kitchen so students would get a real-life experience working in a kitchen.”
A lot of the school’s graduates were coming out with the knowledge they needed about nutrition, but lacking the practical experience. Moody said that they wanted to give their students a better foundation in the process of cooking food.
The Kitchen Café is for students of the health solutions college to get practice making, serving and running a restaurant. Along with the kitchen experience, students are also able to gain better managing skills.
“This is for the experience of the students,” Moody said. “It’s not our goal to make money, it’s our goal to make better managers.”
The Kitchen Café does not have a set menu. They serve something different every day in order to give the students more experience with different foods.
“There’s a lot of different options at The Kitchen Café. They change almost every single day,” Victoria Edwards, a senior at the College of Health Solutions, said. “So instead of getting a fried chicken sandwich every day, you can try new things.”
A new smoothie shop, Rush Bowls, is also currently in the process of opening below the Walter Cronkite School of the Journalism and Mass Communication building.
Rush Bowls was founded in 2004 by CEO Andrew Pudalov in Boulder, Colorado.
“One of the greatest areas that people start eating healthy, and where they kind of get turned into eating unhealthy is college towns,” Pudalov said.
Pudalov said it was imperative to find a way that people can have healthy, nutritious options that taste good.
His original focus was mainly on college students. “If you are studying for a final or whatever it is, you are not eating healthy,” he said.
There are 26 locations that range all over the nation.
The menu consists of smoothies, bowls and even a little something for your furry friend. The Rush Bowls website defines their bowls as a “creamy blend of all-natural fruits and vegetables.”
Some of their supplements include kale, spinach, soy protein, weight trim, energy, antioxidants, hangover-preventions, multivitamin and matcha green tea.
“We felt there was a great need for healthy options on the campus. We need pure healthy nutrition that’s going to make you feel good stronger and healthier,” Pudalov said.
The restaurant doesn’t have an official opening date yet, but they expect to be open for business in early March.
Contact the reporter at mdheslin@asu.edu.
