B&I serves healthy fare to the public

Providing healthy, feel-good food on-site to help employees perform at their best isn’t a brand-new concept. (Google has been doing it for years.) But opening up a healthy workplace café to the public? That’s something you don’t hear about every day. Especially in a small town, where wholesome dining options might otherwise be limited.

Enter Fuel, the on-site restaurant for employees of Clickstop, an e-commerce retail company in Urbana, Ill. This past spring, the eatery announced that it would serve non-employees as well. “Urbana is a small community, and there are little to no other places to get a healthy lunch. You’d have to travel 15 to 30 minutes to find other healthy options,” says Fuel Culinary Director Zach Smith.

Fuel cafe's nutritious lunch menu includes Italian chicken breast with broccoli and strawberries.

Clickstop initially decided to open Fuel, which stands for Food Utilized to Energize Lives, to make it easier for employees to grab a nutritious lunch that wouldn’t leave them feeling lethargic. “A lot of employees would be going to the convenience store or nearby bar to get lunch. And when they’d come back, they weren’t being as productive,” Smith says. Fuel has helped change that—and in a way that’s affordable. Most lunch options clock in between $6 and $8.

But with just 175 employees at Clickstop, Fuel’s customer base was pretty small. Opening up to the public filled an obvious need in the marketplace—and is helping the café turn a bigger profit. “We have a closed audience with our internal community,” Smith says. “Being able to offer Fuel to our external audience makes it a more sustainable restaurant.”

The operation is still small. Smith currently preps between 30 and 75 lunch orders per day with help from a part-time employee. “The goal was to build it slow and perfect it, and add more labor as demand increases. So we’re not doing a lot of advertising at this point,” he says.

Another thing that makes Fuel stand out is the way that lunch is ordered. Both employees and members of the public can access Fuel’s menu through its website, and place and pay for their orders online. Orders can be made ahead of time, giving Smith ample time to prepare them. Then customers can come in to pick up their food between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. A dine-in option isn’t yet available to the public. But employees can take their food to the Grand Room, Clickstop’s dining room that doubles as a meeting space.

Employees who’d prefer to order their lunch in person, in real time, can do that too. “There’s a cook’s line that has a steam table, a grill and all of those options. They can go through the line and pick what they want, and we’ll serve them,” Smith says. Because Clickstop employees have set break times, Smith is able to serve them in waves, which are easier to prep for when he’s working solo.

One thing the line doesn’t have, though, is a fryer. That was a conscious decision, given Clickstop’s commitment to less processed fare. “Everything is either grilled or baked,” says Smith. The menu consists mostly of wraps, salads and sandwiches—including a spicy grilled black bean burger, chicken ranch wrap and chicken club salad. Snacks and sides include simple options like cottage cheese, nuts and sweet potato chips. In lieu of standard fountain drinks, low-calorie sodas like Zevia are available. Employees ordering in person also have access to a full-service salad bar, a yogurt bar and a daily hot entrée like Italian grilled chicken breast with quinoa and vegetables.

Fuel sources many of its ingredients locally when possible, too. “Clickstop bought the land that a local farmer uses, and I actually buy produce from them,” Smith says. Beef is sourced from nearby Iowa as well.

And though the healthier, minimally processed options are a change of pace for Urbana, it’s one that people seem to be happy with. “I’ve gotten comments from the employees and the owner about liking the lighter options and not feeling weighed down, but coming away satisfied with their meal,” Smith says. Employees who don’t want to leave campus are also happy to no longer have to worry about packing a lunch.

As Fuel’s customer base continues to expand, the hope is that its service options will too. In the near future, Smith anticipates offering corporate catering for other nearby business in need of fresh, healthy meals. “We’d love to have more of the community utilize Fuel for as a restaurant for their lunch needs,” he says.