BY Seattle Met – A California-based cafe called Vitality Bowls will bring some healthful offerings—acai bowls, smoothies, juices, salads, and panini—to 429 Fairview Avenue later this fall. Bee pollen and organic mangosteen? Yep. Those too.
BY Fast Casual – Vitality Bowls has signed an agreement with entrepreneur Ben Shaw to open the chain’s first unit first in Tennessee, according to a company press release.
“Ben is exactly the right entrepreneur to grow the brand in Chattanooga,” Co-founder Tara Gilad, said in the release. “His business intellect is outstanding. We are eager to see Ben fill the demand for a healthy fast casual cafe in Chattanooga.”
Shaw is planning to open multiple locations in the area, Gilad said.
Founded in 2011, in San Ramon, California, Vitality Bowls now has more than 135 locations open or in development.
BY QSR Magazine – Vitality Bowls has signed an agreement with local entrepreneur Ben Shaw to open the first café in Tennessee. Following this opening, Shaw is planning to open multiple locations in the Chattanooga area.
“I’m eager to introduce Tennessee to all that Vitality Bowls has to offer,” says Shaw, a seasoned business executive with experience in operations and team management. “Customers can be assured that anything they order from our menu will always be made with care and with the finest, quality ingredients. I look forward to providing Chattanooga residents with food they can feel confident about.”
Originating in Northern California, the last nine years have solidified Vitality Bowls’ status as a pioneer in the industry – combining a dynamic café vibe with a unique collection of menu items containing high nutritional values and extraordinary tastes. Vitality Bowls offers an antioxidant-rich menu, with breakfast, lunch and dinner items made to order for each customer. All açaí bowls and smoothies are prepared without any ingredient fillers like ice, frozen yogurt, or artificial preservatives, providing the purest taste possible.
The menu features the widest variety of unique superfoods, including graviola, acerola, organic mangosteen, organic camu camu, organic spirulina, organic aronia, organic moringa, organic maca, bee pollen and more.
Guests can choose from a variety of delectable options, such as the Green Bowl (with graviola, organic spirulina and organic hemp seeds), the Dragon Bowl (featuring pitaya, coconut milk and bananas) and their signature Vitality Bowl (with organic açaí, strawberries and honey). Plus, fresh juices, smoothies, soups, panini and salads are available in each café.
“Ben is exactly the right entrepreneur to grow the brand in Chattanooga,” says Tara Gilad, co-founder of Vitality Bowls. “His business intellect is outstanding. We are eager to see Ben fill the demand for a healthy fast casual café in Chattanooga.”
There are currently more than 135 Vitality Bowls locations open or in development across the United States.
BY The Signal – Trends never seem to make any sense. For example, dad shoes became the sneaker trend of the year among young fashion models, bike shorts became a phenomenon among people who don’t bike and all food started to be served in a bowl. Forget plates — that’s so not millennial.
The food-in-bowls trend started on Instagram in 2016, and according to The Wall Street Journal, the trend is still going strong and seems less like a “fleeting fashion” and more like a “lasting manner.” So, feel free to get rid of any plates, because this trend isn’t going anywhere. The trend was promoted by wellness bloggers for the loads of nutrients piling into the bowl and for how aesthetically pleasing it looks.
Like most trends starting on social media, it then spread to local hipster restaurants in various cities, eventually moving to chain restaurants. Food in bowls now can be found just about anywhere, and here are some of the restaurants in Atlanta locals go to ditch the plate completely.
Grain & Salad Bowls
Upbeet is the epitome of a Los Angeles-inspired restaurant in the South. With minimalist walls and decor, aesthetic neon lights and an entire fridge dedicated to kombucha, people would never guess they were in Westside Atlanta. The restaurant’s motto “Good Vibes Only” refers to their idea of serving non-GMO foods, grass-fed animal protein and organic vegetables. Fit for a healthy diet on the go, Upbeet is quick and offers healthy food without the time consumption of cooking from home.
Similar to Chipotle, customers order their bowls in an assembly-line fashion. With a diverse menu from everything to grain bowls with quinoa and bamboo rice to customized salads from every cuisine like the “Fiesta Bowl” or “My Thai,” the choices are endless. Customers can even build their own to make for an aesthetically pleasing photo. With several toppings from organic nuts and cheeses and housemade gluten-free and vegan dressings, anyone can get creative in making their bowl camera- and tummy-ready.
Upbeet also serves toasts, smoothies and superfood lattes, but Gusto, an Atlanta-based fast food spot, sticks strictly to the food-in-bowls trend. Opened in 2014 by former NFL quarterback Nate Hybl, Gusto has several locations throughout Atlanta from Decatur to Ponce and even a location in Chamblee with a soon-to-be drive-thru for bowls on the go.
As with Upbeet, Gusto customers order in an assembly-line fashion. First, customers choose from sauces created by Hybl himself like his #1 chipotle, mango and avocado sauce, then protein options (shrimp, steak, chicken, portobello, avocado, etc.), all free of antibiotics, and a base (rice, salad, both or a wrap). Once customers design their Instagram-ready bowl, every meal comes with a side of housemade sweet potato chips.
Açaí & Fish Bowls
The food-in-bowls trend is fit for just about every meal of the day. Whether it be a salad for lunch or a grain bowl for dinner, the trend even follows into breakfast with açaí bowls. Açaí is a South American berry that’s bursting with nutrients and loaded with antioxidants.
Several places in Atlanta offer açaí bowls, but Vitality Bowls in Midtown specializes in them. With more than 10 different bowl options offering from anything to hearty bowls with peanut butter and granola to immunity boosting with raw ginger and bee pollen, Vitality Bowls has it all. Just like most bowl places, customers can add in their own creativity and make their own wellness bowl, such as adding tropical toppings like mangos and pineapples or even make their bowl extra sweet by adding chocolate chips and honey.
The latest food-in-bowl trend is poke, which is sliced raw fish from Hawaii. Poke is basically deconstructed sushi in a bowl. The bowl is based with white sushi rice, brown rice or salad and topped with a variety of ingredients like seaweed, sesame seeds, raw tuna or salmon and even masago (fish eggs).
The most popular poke place among Georgia State students is Fish Poke Bowl located on Broad Street and inside the Sweet Auburn Market. Always packed with a line, customers grab a pen and paper and design their own bowl by checking off toppings like shrimp, tofu, and various veggies and sauces.
BY Times Free Press – One of America’s fastest growing healthy food cafes famous for its acai bowls is expanding into the Chattanooga market.
Memphis entrepreneur Ben Shaw plans to open the first Vitality Bowls cafe in Tennessee next year in Chattanooga — the first of what he envisions as multiple locations in the market for the superfood cafe.
“I’m eager to introduce Tennessee to all that Vitality Bowls has to offer,” said Shaw, a former vice president of operations at Mimeo.com who started Nourish Nooga LLC earlier this year to develop the Vitality Bowls franchise in Chattanooga. “Eating healthy is something I am very passionate about and Vitality Bowls is a great concept that I think will work very well in the Chattanooga market.”
The new cafes will offer high nutritional foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner in a cafe environment. Vitality Bowls’ antioxidant-rich menu is made to order for each customer and includes açaí bowls and smoothies prepared without any ingredient fillers like ice, frozen yogurt, or artificial preservatives.
The menu also features a variety of superfoods, including graviola, acerola, organic mangosteen, organic camu camu, organic spirulina, organic aronia, organic moringa, organic maca, bee pollen and more.
The cafe will feature its Green Bowl (with graviola, organic spirulina and organic hemp seeds), the Dragon Bowl (featuring pitaya, coconut milk and bananas) and the signature Vitality Bowl (with organic açaí, strawberries and honey). Fresh juices, smoothies, soups, panini and salads also are available in each cafe.
Roy Gilad and Tara Gilad founded the brand in 2011 in San Ramon, California as a result of discovering their daughter’s severe food allergies and wanting to find healthy, safe food alternatives.
Since franchising began in 2014, the brand has grown to more than 135 cafes that are either open or are under development. The brand has four stores in Georgia, but the new Chattanooga location will be the first in Tennessee.
Shaw said he is working with a commercial Realtor and expects to soon have a site for his first Vitality Bowls restaurant and will follow that up with another location elsewhere in Chattanooga.
“Ben is exactly the right entrepreneur to grow the brand in Chattanooga,” said Tara Gilad, co-founder of Vitality Bowls. “His business intellect is outstanding. We are eager to see Ben fill the demand for a healthy fast casual cafe in Chattanooga.”
Shaw said he has been eager to return to Chattanooga, where his parents moved when he was 13 years old. He hired a consultant to help identify the best business to open and decided on Vitality Bowls because of his interest in eating and living in healthy ways.
“I love all of the outdoor activities in Chattanooga and after doing several races in that area, I knew I wanted to get back there,” said Shaw, who is relocating from Memphis to Chattanooga to run his new business.
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