Austin Evans set out to make it easier for people to lose weight in St. Joseph when he started Lean Kitchen in 2016.
He and a friend opened a supplement store in St. Joe that made them aware that people needed help in losing weight in a healthy way.
“It was going really well and we wanted to get people results with what they struggle with the most —their diet,” Evans said. “We wondered if we should introduce fresh, prepared meals that taste amazing and have a big variety to choose from. We wanted to save people time and help them get healthy.”
The idea took off and expansions quickly began. There are now stores in Maryville, Mo., Wichita, Kan., Topeka, Kan., Parkville, Alabama, Cincinnati, Ohio and South Carolina. The franchising began in 2018 and shows no signs of slowing down.
The Parkville Lean Kitchen is owned by local residents Heather and Stan Ehrhardt. They plan to open a minimum of six other stores over the next five years in locations around the Kansas City area.
“We were in the Lean Kitchen store in St. Joe and we thought it was a really neat concept,” Stan said. “We were talking to Austin and we told him we would like do another business and we found out that Austin wanted to expand into the Kansas City market, so my wife and I decided to develop it.”
While going international is under consideration, for the immediate future Evans is focusing on domestic locations.
“I just want to impact as many local communities as we can,” Evans said. “We want owners that can operate the stores and really care about their businesses. We focus on people who we can help to change their lives and make successful.”
Lean Kitchen uses fresh ingredients and all meals are made from scratch. More than 25 menu options are offered and new meals are introduced each month.
The stores also carry supplements so their customers can one-stop shop for nutritious daily meals and weight loss products.
“This concept was born out of our supplement store in St. Joe so we can offer everything from supplements for weight loss to meals that help people eat healthy to enable them to reach their fitness goals,” Evans said.
Delivery was launched this month and will soon be available in Platte City. Delivery orders will be taken on Fridays and delivered on Mondays.
“You can order your whole meals for the week,” Evans said. “This is a good plan for older people and everybody else.”
One of Evan’s motivations is setting right the idea many people have about ‘healthy’ food.
“People think of healthy food and they think automatically, oh, it won’t taste very good. This food is healthy and it tastes amazing. We make healthy food taste delicious. We have many different options to cater to many different types of diets. We offer lunch and dinner options and some healthy snacks, including protein donuts, energy drinks and other beverages. We try to do things that don’t just scream healthy so that’s why we do the protein donuts. They’re really good and not loaded with calories.”
For the Ehrhardts helping people reach their nutritional goals and enjoy a healthy lifestyle makes their business very enjoyable.
“On each of the dinners nutritional facts are listed and all the ingredients are listed,” Stan said.” All the meals are made from scratch and there is no added sugar and no preservatives. My favorite thing about being in this business is meeting new people in the community and having a chance to positively impact them. Just having a presence in the Kansas City area is great.”