Individuals are starting to take greater concern with issues of health--kind of a necessity given our obesity and diabetes epidemics.
In response to customer demands and new laws forcing them to publish calorie contents, many restaurants and chains are beginning to offer healthier eating options.
Duffy's Sports Grill just jumped on the healthy bandwagon. The chain is now offering more than 20 dishes that are calorie conscious. Salad, beer, and football? Hey, you never know.
Clean Plate Charlie spoke to Duffy's corporate chef Erik Parker about the decision.
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The new menu offers 23 items that are all less than 580 calories each. New items include dishes like the small Napa Valley salad, chicken tortilla soup, and pasta primavera.
"It's no secret that there is pending legislation that will require chain restaurants to list calories counts very soon, so we began taking a hard look at our menu and began analyzing our offerings in preparation for this," said Parker, "We also noticed an uptick in guest inquiries related to nutritional content. While the vast majority of our guests don't seem concerned with calorie counts and nutritional information, we did want to be accommodating to the segment of our guests who are interested. With the success and positive feedback we saw with our Duffy's Healthy Options, we decided to add to the program, giving more choice and variety for the calorie conscious with the recent launch of our new menu."
According to Parker, the chain noticed some of their biggest selling items were already in the 500 calorie range. That prompted the chain to start indicating calorie conscious items earlier this year.
The chain also makes an effort to cater to food allergies.
"We have well trained chefs in all of our locations that can answer questions on the ingredients in our dishes so Duffy's can be accommodating to our guests with various food allergies," said Parker, "We have had a 'gluten free' menu for a few years and are seeing the popularity continue to grow. Because we do make so many of our menu items from scratch, we can usually accommodate special requests."
If more restaurants follow Duffy's lead, maybe someday America will no longer be leading the obesity epidemic.
To see the new menu visit duffysmvp.com/menu.
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