The Fitness Alliance, an association of health club owners, managers and other industry leaders, just released their list of the top 10 healthiest restaurants in Saint Louis. Making the list is: Frida’s and Winslow’s in University City, Crushed Red in Clayton and Kirkwood, Athlete Eats and Purple Martin in St. Louis City, a local food delivery service called Metabolic Meals, Fit Flavors in Chesterfield, Hot Pot in Kirkwood, Nathalie’s in the Central West End and Seedz in Clayton.
The campaign was sponsored by Rain Crow Ranch, a grass fed beef farm in Missouri that supplies local restaurants with high quality meat that is raised in a healthier manner.
The process of vetting the restaurants consisted of these functions: 1. Voting by local fitness industry leaders 2. Input from local restaurateurs. 3. Feedback from local farms and suppliers 4. Analysis of menu options by local dietician 5. Evaluation of ingredients and suppliers by local dietician and fitness expert, Abby Herrick. “We focused much more on the quality of the ingredients and making sure they were real food. That’s why you’ll find the restaurants on the list can also offer desserts and other tasty treats. It takes a lot of hard work and passion to ensure that certain standards are met and it was important to know that restaurants selected had solid values in maintaining that integrit,.” Herrick said.
St. Louis Fitness Alliance Chapter Director, Travis Moore, says of the campaign, “We had several goals in pursuing this campaign. First, we wanted to raise awareness of, and be an advocate for, the healthy restaurants in St. Louis. Our hope is that more St. Louis locals would seek higher quality ingredients from the places they buy food and that they would also be willing to pay higher prices for higher quality food. Lastly, we wanted to build a bridge between healthy restaurants and health clubs because we noticed that exercisers tend to be more motivated if they are also eating healthy. Conversely, people who eat healthy are also more prone to start, and continue, a workout program. It was a strategic way to help both industries and work together to combat the nation’s healthcare crisis.”
The three themes connecting the healthy restaurants were: the sourcing of local ingredients that are organic and chemical-free when possible, recipe’s made from scratch with real food, and accommodating special dietary needs like gluten-free or vegetarian options.
Crushed Red offers a variety of options to make pizza healthy and delicious with whole grain or gluten free crust options and a multitude of healthy chop salads. They have two locations, one in Clayton and one in Kirkwood.
Two of the restaurants are located in University City and they each grow their own food, Fridas, best known for being sugar and butter free, and having amazing fruit and veggie smoothies, and Winslow’s Home, which offers a very warm country feel with a robust menu.
Athlete Eats is in the South Grand neighborhood and is famous for not just healthy and great tasting food and drinks, but also for providing meals to many of our local professional athletes in town.
Purple Martin, also in the South Grand area of Fox Park, offers a great menu and nightlife as well. They have a weekly game night they call Cards and Cocktails, which is on Tuesday nights.
Two spots that made the list aren’t restaurants in the traditional sense, but specialize in amazingly healthy food for St. Louisans. Metabolic Meals is a St. Louis based gourmet food delivery service that has also gained a lot of traction with professional athletes and specializes in fat-loss, sports performance and overall balanced health. In Chesterfield, Fit Flavors offers amazingly delicious and portion controlled meals for take-out.
One of Kirkwood’s hottest restaurants, The HotPot combines the health and excitement of Asian influenced cuisine with a casual corner coffee shop. Their food and smoothies are incredibly fresh, all-natural and delicious.
Nathalie’s, in the Central West End, offers a very sophisticated urban atmosphere and entertaining nightlife, combined with responsibly grown artisan cuisine directly from their farm in Clarksville, Missouri.
And finally, Seedz Café, in the DeMun neighborhood of Clayton, an earthy restaurant that is as fantastically organic as it is committed to serving the community with authentic love and healthy food.
“What started as a simple way to unite the two worlds of fitness and nutrition, quickly began to flourish into something much bigger. It brought me a lot of joy to get to know the restaurant owners, their philosophy and ultimate purpose in wanting to make a difference in the community.
Getting to see behind scenes of the restaurants and developing relationships with the owners on more of a personal level really brought a deeper appreciation and understanding for how they are serving St. Louis,” Herrick concluded. Abby Herrick can be reached at Abby@TheFitnessAlliance.org
About The Fitness Alliance:
The mission of The Fitness Alliance is to connect, inspire and equip fitness industry leaders on a local level for personal and professional development through local events.
By growing a network of chapters around the globe, The Fitness Alliance is recruiting and training leaders who have the character, competency and commitment to recruit and train other leaders to transform the way the world understands fitness, prioritizes exercise, and values health.
The vision of the organization is known as the 2040 Project and aims to increase fitness participation from 20% of the population to 40% of the population by the year 2040. They hope to accomplish this through collaborating to develop new products and programs that raise the bar for the fitness industry and increase health globally. For more information about The Fitness Alliance, you can call them at 314-378-9375 or visit them at www.TheFitnessAlliance.org.