By Erin Hunsader
Staff Writer
GREEN BAY – Titletown will soon be home to a new “bowl.”
The Fresh Kind Kitchen will open its doors on Washington Street in downtown Green Bay later this month, and like Titletown’s infamous Ice Bowl, all of its dishes come in, well, a bowl.
What customers can get in that bowl is where The Fresh Kind Kitchen’s niche lies.
Downtown’s newest restaurant is the brainchild of four foodies – two from Green Bay, one from Tomahawk and the fourth hailing from the Windy City.
The friend quartet – Russ Petrouske, Diana Wong, Lindsay Wozniczka and Caleb Suda, co-owners of the Iron Duck restaurant in Howard – together came up with the idea of offering healthy, fast fare to the hungry folks in Green Bay.
“We had recognized a need for something a little bit on the healthier side – something fresh and available…,” Suda said. “So we talked about a couple of ideas and the bowl idea came about. It’s something that’s been seen on the coasts for awhile now. It hasn’t really made its way to the Midwest, and Green Bay has been screaming for it.”
Suda, the creator behind many of the recipes, said they wanted to feature an array of different types of food with different flavor profiles.
“We really wanted to capitalize on the idea of multiple cuisines, not just one style of food,” he said. “We wanted to be able to introduce fun food as well as a variety of cultures that maybe people haven’t had before, or are just downright delicious, and we can offer multiple different influences.”
Fresh Kind bowls will include cuisine influenced by many parts of the world.
“Some of the bowls we will be (making) are like a Southwest turkey barbacoa with black bean corn salsa and avocado,” Suda said. “Moving further east, we’re doing a Mediterranean lamb and meatball bowl, roasted garlic and turmeric tzatziki. In addition to that, we’re doing a West African sweet potato bowl, which actually has no protein and, shockingly, is my favorite one.”
Diners will be able to order from a menu of premade bowls, or create their own.
“We have a list of composed bowls that we think go really great together that we’ve designed for ease of your own ordering, but if there’s something more specific that you’d like – it’s your world… let’s make it the way you want it,” Suda said. “This is my own personal motto – whenever coming up with anything healthy or gluten free, it’s always, delicious first.”
Besides being delicious and healthy, their aim is to also be fast.
“People are looking for that faster dining experience,” Petrouske said. “How can I get in and out and back to work? So, we built the concept around that idea. How can we have (made-from)-scratch food options for people, but still get them out and not have them wreck their lunch hour… Our food is built on the idea that you don’t have to take a nap when you get back to work.”
Or, as Wong put it, “Fast, comfortable, relaxed and healthy.”
Lindsay Wozniczka said Fresh Kind is a place where “people can really tailor their lunch for their lifestyle.”
Petrouske said they are “shooting for the middle of January” for their grand opening.
“We want to do it right and have all the pieces in place so we don’t have to pull back,” he said. He also said it is a challenging time of year to find fresh produce in Wisconsin.
“The logistics of opening right now – there are so many supply issues and other things, we’re doing our best to make sure that, yes we can buy this product from this supplier, but if they’re out of it, we can still carry it, we just have to go to this other supplier,” Petrouske said. “We have reached out to a couple of the local food suppliers who are gearing up to really, in the springtime, hit the ground running.”
The restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, but Wong said there “will be a lunch focus.”
“Being healthy, you don’t have to compromise,” Petrouske said. “You don’t have to give up flavor or feeling full. You can have the best of both worlds and that’s what we really want to show people.”