Organic Krush Lifestyle Eatery held its grand opening in Plainview recently. The organic restaurant, located at 1495 Old Country Rd. in Building C, has a mission to inspire a higher level of health by sharing their 100 percent organic juices and food with the community.
“We feel awesome about opening this third location,” said Michelle Walrath, cofounder of Organic Krush. “We’ve been spending the last few years getting ready for this and we have an amazing team and an amazing crew on board.” She explained how the new location will serve a lot of different people and a different community as a whole.
The Plainview location is part of its expansion plan that includes three new locations on Long Island by the fall of 2019, in addition to their two current locations in Woodbury and Amagansett. In 2020, they plan to open six to eight additional tristate area locations.
The story of the restaurant goes back to August 2014, in which Fran and Michelle, two Long Island moms with a passion for healthy, tasty organic food, decided it was time to follow through on the possibility of opening a healthy eatery where they could get a healthy lunch, organic coffee and a family dinner they would feel good about serving their children.
While they both love to cook healthy for their families, neither had the experience to cook for a restaurant, and so they hired chef James Tchinnis, founder and owner of Swallow Restaurant. He took their ideas and brought them to the next level of craftsmanship, leading to a menu built along with a plan to master the intricate process of cold-press juicing.
Nine months later in May 2015, Organic Krush opened its doors to the love of a passionate community. Their idea came from the solution to the lack of clean, hormone and pesticide-free food options to feed their family outside of their own homes. As soon as they opened, Organic Krush attracted a blend of the community, including a loyal customer base of health, fitness and organic food enthusiasts who shared their passion and loved having a resource for this type of cuisine.
“Everyone tells you to have a targeted audience but ours became clear in weeks and it was for anyone who cared about healthy and delicious food,” Walrath said.
After receiving a consensus from the customers, Fran and Michelle realized there was a huge void in the market, leading to the expansion of the eateries.
“We initially wanted to create a place where we could share the delicious, healthy all-day menu with our family, friends and local Long Island community,” Walrath said.
The extensive organic menu includes breakfast all day; classic and build-your-own organic and vegan meals in a bowl, salad, taco or wrap; a gluten-free bakery; soup and bone broths; a kids menu; smoothies; açai bowls; cold press juices; cleanses; meal plans; and a range of organic beverages and snacks.
A big feature the eatery offers is juice cleanses, which are often used as part of a healthy lifestyle commitment and are often done at the start of each new season or when there is extreme fatigue, stress or certain physical or digestive ailments. During a juice cleanse, a participant only consumes vegetable and fruit juices, which gives their organs a break from the tedious job of digestion. At Organic Krush, they run one to 15 day cleanses.
In terms of philanthropy, the eatery also donates food waste to local food pantries and regularly supports the No Kid Hungry campaign, which connects kids in need with nutritious food and also teaches their families how to cook healthy, affordable meals. The campaign also engages the public to make ending childhood hunger a national priority.
Future plans include cooking classes, speaker workshops and visits to colleges to speak on the benefits of a healthy and organic lifestyle.
Walrath explained that the grand opening in Plainview went very well, where many enthusiastic customers showed up. There is also a new feature, in which in minutes, customers can have their meal prepared in front of them.
“We are introducing a front-of-house buildable model, where customers get to interact with the chefs in creating their dishes,” as a part of the goal of eating healthy on the go and for food coming out quickly, said Walrath. “It’s been amazing from the internal team to making the customers happy. Food is love.”
Maya Brown is a contributing writer for Anton Media Group.
