Is this America’s best fast food restaurant?
The scene: While playing for the Boston Celtics, one of NBA star Ray Allen’s children was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. His wife Shannon began cooking healthy, natural meals at home, but being an overscheduled modern mother, shuttling five kids to soccer games and events, she quickly became frustrated with the lack of non-processed options available out on the road. In 2008, after consulting with experts from Harvard’s Business School and School of Public Health, she developed a business plan to open a healthy fast food restaurant with a drive-thru. Eight years later and after a trade to the Miami Heat, the Allens opened Grown two months ago, and the response has been overwhelming.
“I was cooking for a professional athlete for 20 years, and had a lot of help from expert trainers and nutritionists," says Shannon Allen. She got her friend Tara Mardigan, longtime nutritionist for the Boston Red Sox and author of Real Fit Kitchen to consult on the menu.
Two more Florida locations are in the works, and Shannon, whose mission is to bring this kind of accessible wholesome food to fast-paced families everywhere, hopes to open more, ideally thousands more, coast to coast. She cooks, greets, serves and is in the restaurant almost daily. Ray, who retired a 10-time All Star, two-time NBA Champ and Olympic Gold Medalist, has been making sandwiches behind the counter and their kids have bussed tables at busy times. With an exceptionally friendly staff of 66, Grown has more help than almost any place its size, but is devoted to being fast — really fast — and has been slammed since opening, with lines daily out the door from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., serving more than a thousand guests a day.
“In this country if you want to eat burgers, fries, hot dogs, pizza or fried chicken, you are golden, you can get those things everywhere, without getting out of your car," says Shannon. "But if you want wild caught salmon or drug-free natural meats without going to a fine dining restaurant, or have kids with special dietary needs, you are out of luck. It’s no judgment against fast food — I love fast food, I have five kids, I’ve driven around with the car seats, that’s why I’m doing this.
"I chose this location because it's the busiest road in South Florida: 140,000 cars go by each day, and I always thought the busy mom would love it. My mission is making healthy, organic food easily accessible and affordable to busy people. Wholesome food can't be a niche.”
Grown occupies a corner in one of many strip malls lining South Dixie Highway in South Miami, very close to the University of Miami campus. (They provide snacks three times a week to the school’s football team.) The Allens have converted a former Mexican eatery into an airy, high-ceilinged spot, its white tile walls covered with inspirational quotes by everyone from Oprah to Dr. Seuss, and outdoor seating can be merged with the indoor space by opening a glass paned garage door set in one wall. There is rustic wood barn board siding and flowers outside, while inside are pots of herbs, the restaurant name and logo in topiary, and a green plant tower climbing to the ceiling.
It has a warm feel, but is still unmistakably fast food, with drive-thru, order at the counter, food prepared on the other side of the glass in plain view, then served in carefully sourced recyclable and biodegradable lidded trays. The feel is more Au Bon Pain than Burger King, a slightly sophisticated take on the genre, and behind the counter is a visible fresh pressed juice station and large glass doored rotisserie where about a thousand free-range, drug free, organic chickens roast weekly.
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In a few weeks Grown will hang its organic certification on the door, making it just the 10th restaurant in the entire country to achieve this status, which requires top to bottom compliance, including all farm vendors — even the ketchup and hot sauce on the counter are organic. They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, in and to-go.
Reason to visit: Chicken and brisket wraps and sandwiches, fresh pressed juices, chicken tortilla soup, wild salmon, peace of mind
The food: The multiple goals at Grown include sourcing exclusively organic and the most natural ingredients possible, an emphasis on supporting local farmers, great taste, low prices, and doing it all fast. This is logistically a nightmare, and to make it work, the Allens have created a rather inventive flow chart format where diners mix and match proteins, veggies, sides and shapes to make entree platters, meal salads, wraps or sandwiches.
A core slate of animal proteins includes grilled wild caught Alaskan salmon, slow roasted grass-fed organic beef brisket, rotisserie chickens, hand carved oven roasted turkey, homemade chicken and tuna salads, and sautéed shrimp. Vegetarians and vegans can skip these altogether and go to the next step, picking a salad, wrap, platter or sandwich. Each comes in myriad varieties: for salads you choose from five “vibes,” or pre-selected combinations, such as Grown Simply Greens, fresh greens with vine ripened tomatoes, candied pecans, green apples, cucumber and marinated red onions. If none of the combos works, you can go custom. Wraps and sandwich options include gluten-free rolls, bread and wraps, along with conventional (but organic) baguettes, sourdough, multi-grain bread and whole wheat wraps. All sandwiches include organic veggies. For entrees, a meal-size portion of salmon, beef or other main is combined with a choice from a seasonally changing list of vegetables (Mexican street corn, grilled asparagus, sautéed broccoli, roasted Brussels sprouts), a grain (gluten-free pasta salad, black beans, organic rice, roasted sweet potatoes, Mediterranean quinoa salad), and a sauce, such as chimichurri, Memphis BBQ, salsa verde or herb yogurt.
By allowing you to build in this flowchart fashion, they have created an impressively varied list of items from entrees to wraps to meal salads, all of which can be prepared very quickly. Shannon herself took her kids through the drive-thru unannounced and timed it, getting dinner for four in under two minutes. Every time a customer expresses surprise by saying “That was fast!” the entire staff cheers and claps, and this happens often.
All sauces, dressing, salads, salsa and sides are made in-house daily, even the bone broth used to make the soup is done from scratch. It’s a complex and preparation-intensive 17-hour day but it works — extremely well.
Portions are large, nutrient rich and inexpensive, and no one goes away hungry. The brisket and salmon main course platters are the priciest things on the menu at $17-18, but are full dinners of fine dining quality — the excellent salmon is tastier than most you find at specialty seafood places for twice the price. The generously stuffed wraps and sandwiches are far more substantial than typical drive-thru burgers or tacos, and most are just $6. They are also delicious: Shannon herself brought the rotisserie chicken salad recipe from her home cooking, and my favorite was the Parisian, a baguette with hard boiled egg, greens, ripe tomatoes, marinated onions, Dijon aioli and lots of rotisserie chicken, inspired by street food she had on a visit to France. The delicious tortilla chicken soup is something she fell in love with in Boston when developing the Grown plan, so she hired the chef and brought him to Florida.
As almost all shrimp and salmon served in this country is farmed and much is suspect for containing drugs (legal and banned), and conventional beef is full of antibiotics and steroids, the dining experience here is remarkably stress and worry free, even for those who normally worry most about food: the place was designed to cater to just about every conceivable food allergy and dietary restriction. The grill is celiac-free to avoid cross contamination and the entire place is peanut-free. For breakfast, gluten-free pancakes are offered with organic blueberries and organic Vermont maple syrup, and you wouldn’t know the light, fluffy hotcakes were gluten-free if it didn't matter to you. Build your own omelets are offered in the same fashion as the lunch offerings.
To say there is something for everyone is an understatement. “We get hardcore carnivores, people on the paleo diet, as well as vegans, vegetarians, people who are eating gluten-free, other dietary concerns, religious beliefs, and we accommodate them all," says Shannon. A food map of the Florida farms used is on the outside wall near the door, and they encourage diners to read labels on ingredients, leaving organic stickers on apples and bananas.
A hydration station with filtered water, sparkling water, and two daily infused fruit or veggie waters are prominently displayed and free, because the Allens feel that Americans don't drink enough water, and as Shannon says, “If you're eating food here you should not have to buy a drink.” And the name? “We have to reeducate people in this country that food is not something that’s made, it’s something that is grown.”
Given that most former pro athletes who go the restaurant route do high-end steakhouses or license their name, and this concept seemed too good to be true, tied to a hot culinary trend, I was suspect that Grown was a gimmick trading on the organic cache. It is not. It’s the place I would eat all the time if it was near me, the way I cook food at home where I control the sourcing.
Pilgrimage-worthy?: Yes, if you have any food allergies and want to have a great meal without worry, and anyone who cares about what the are eating will love Grown.
Rating: OMG! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)
Price: $-$$ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)
Details: Original, 8211 South Dixie Highway, Miami, FL; 305-663-4769; https://www.grown.org/
Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an email at travel@usatoday.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.