Let's Eat" Helps You Rediscover the Joy of Cooking

Owner Mark Minton opened Let's Eat in 2006

Let's Eat

8445 Honore Ave
(University Parkway -- same plaza as Home Depot on opposite corner)

LAKEWOOD RANCH – I have to be honest, when I first started hearing about the concept of restaurants where you prepare your own meals to take home and freeze for later use, it didn't really appeal to me. It seemed like a lot of work and an unnecessary step in the process. Either I was going to the grocery store or sitting down to enjoy a meal that someone else prepared. I couldn't really get my head around anything in between.

So when Mark Minton told me about his Let's Eat franchise off Honore and University, I wasn't expecting it to be up my alley. I could not have been more wrong. Mark says that getting people to understand the concept is his biggest challenge, but once they do, they are sure to become regulars. Minton, who's from rural northern England, opened the location in April of 2006 and says there's been a boom and bust in terms of the concept as a whole.

"When we opened, there was I believe one other similar business way over in east Bradenton, but then within months there were something like 11 and I thought, oh my God. It was the fastest growing kind of franchise for 2006. But now we're the only one left in the area."

Let's Eat caught on and I can see why. What I had imagined as a long and complicated ordeal was amazingly quick and easy. Let's Eat features a rotating menu of over 300 recipes set up at stations that look like a buffet salad bar and are as clean as a surgical table. Customers take a cooking tin to the stations of the meals they select, where all of the ingredients and necessary kitchenware are set up at stainless steel food bays in an upscale atmosphere that kept making me think of a Williams Sonoma store.

Though I really enjoy cooking, the parts I hate about preparing a really involved meal are the prep time, the clean up and the inevitable second trip to the store when I realize I'm out of a required ingredient. Let's Eat takes care of all of those things. As Mark puts it, "We chop, shop and clean up." The result is a truly serene cooking experience that allows you to enjoy home-cooked meals whenever you like, without all of the hassle.

Let's Eat's typical client is a professional family that doesn't have time to make healthy and delicious meals at home, especially during the school/work week, but doesn't want to live on fast food alone. Let's Eat allows them to select and prepare 8 or 12 meals that will each easily feed two adults and a few children and then take them home ready to put in the freezer. For most of them, this will take care of a month's worth of dining to supplement the occasional pizza, restaurant outing and fast food splurge.

The cost per serving is usually around $4 or less, depending on the package, making it surprisingly affordable as well and not only when compared to dining out. What impressed me most was the quality of the ingredients. This isn't a traditional chain where boxes of frozen baggies show up by the truckload. Mark works with multiple local suppliers to source his food items and it shows. The food itself is much closer to what you'd find at Whole Foods or Fresh Market than Publix or Albertsons, making the value seem even better, especially if you've experienced why shoppers jokingly refer to Whole Foods as "Whole Paycheck."

Because the food is already there for you and all of the ingredients are ready to go, putting them together takes almost no time and the remarkably efficient process allows you to prep each meal in about a quarter of the time you'd spend in your own kitchen. If even that's too much for your hectic schedule, they also offer to put it together themselves right before you pick it up at a slight up-charge, or they'll even deliver.

As I mentioned, the facility is pristinely sanitary. Anyone who's been behind the curtain at even the most upscale restaurants knows that's not always the case. It would have been hard to go home and eat the food, had the environment not been so clean, but the staff was amazing. They were almost invisible, yet had each station looking like new just minutes after we moved on.

Kid's love getting in on the fun

Suffice it to say, my socks were all but knocked off by the time I left, however the real story was when I got home and put our lemon-herb chicken into the oven. An hour later, we were dining on some of the best poultry I've ever tasted – a meal I'd be happy to have received at the priciest restaurants in town.

Again, the quality of the ingredients, from the meat itself to the top-shelf spices, made a big difference. Combined with the fool-proof measuring and excellent recipes, it allowed me to make a meal much tastier than I've ever managed on my own, something I'll remember the next time I'm entertaining a group for dinner.

Once we were done, all that was left was to pitch the tin and wash our plates and silverware. I can't tell you how good it felt to look over and see a clean kitchen and empty sink when the meal had ended. I can definitely see why so many working couples have scrapped the traditional approach and I suspect that there will be a lot more converts once more people have tried this incredibly convenient and tasty concept.

Let's Eat also has a popular ala carte day. Every Tuesday, guests can try individual and even half-sized meals rather than the packages – a tradition that's become quite popular with snowbirds or single professionals who don't require family-sized meals. If you're tired of wasting so many of your precious few non-work/sleep hours trying to avoid the drive-thru lane, try Let's Eat. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Chipolte Beef Burritos -- prep time: 10 minutes