True Food Kitchen will officially open to the public at the former (and now unrecognizable) Bloomingdale's site this Tuesday, Oct. 4, after spending the weekend soft opening with "friends and family" events.
True Food Kitchen's first Northern California location at Stanford Shopping Center. Photo taken Oct. 2, 2016, by Elena Kadvany.
The weekend events were attended by both of the restaurant's co-founders, physician Andrew Weil, who is known for his work in integrative medicine, and Sam Fox, owner of Fox Restaurant Concepts. They opened the first True Food Kitchen in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2008.
The restaurant's food is inspired by Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet, which emphasizes fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes, whole grains, seafood and healthy fats. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diners won’t have any trouble here, but neither will carnivores — there are several meat options throughout the menu.
"True Food Kitchen is based on the idea that food should make you feel better -- not worse," Fox wrote in an email. "And you shouldn’t have to sacrifice taste to live a healthier lifestyle."
He noted that diners will never find anything "processed, refined or manufactured" on a True Food Kitchen menu. The produce, milk and butter are organic, and the beef and fish are sustainably raised, he said.
True Food Kitchen Palo Alto will serve lunch and dinner daily, and brunch on weekends.
Today, there are 14 True Food Kitchen locations throughout Arizona, California, Colorado, Texas, Georgia and Virginia, with more planned to open throughout the country in 2016.
Palo Alto is the company's first Northern California location, to be followed by a Walnut Creek outpost later this month. Fox said that Palo Alto -- "an active neighborhood of healthy-minded men, women and families" -- has "always appealed" to True Food Kitchen.
True Food Kitchen is the latest in a flurry of new eateries that has or will open this year at Stanford Shopping Center:
• Pink Posy Bakery (opened in April)
• Tender Greens, fast-casual salad chain (opened Aug. 31)
• 3potato4, vegan baked French fries (estimated to open late October)
• Go Fish Poke Bar, poké bowls (estimated to open late October)
• Minamoto Kitchoan, artisanal Japanese desserts (estimated to open December)
• Cafe at new Anthropologie store (estimated to open late November)
