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WILKES-BARRE TWP. — A healthy-lifestyle restaurant chain is eyeing a mid-August opening in the township.
CoreLife Eatery will set up shop at 33 Bear Creek Blvd., Todd Mansfield, co-founder, said recently in a phone interview.
Mansfield said the eatery offers a variety of greens, grains and broth-based dishes, all made from scratch.
“We take allergies seriously,” he said, noting CoreLife is the first non-GMO, non-gluten restaurant in the country.
Over the past 27 months, he and his partners have opened 14 sites. And by the time they plan to debut in Wilkes-Barre Township, they will have opened another three.
“We just opened in Pittsburgh (June 29),” said Mansfield.
The partners have a goal of opening a total of 27 CoreLifes by the end of this year.
Described as a “fast casual” restaurant, there are currently CoreLife locations in Binghamton, N.Y., and Allentown, both roughly an hour’s drive from the Wyoming Valley.
“It’s a lay-up that we should be in the Wilkes-Barre market,” Mansfield said, noting his partners also franchise with Moe’s Southwest Grill.
The restaurant clings so strictly to its healthy lifestyle mantra, it refuses to sell soda and dessert dishes.
The challenge for the Syracuse, N.Y.-based company was attempting to be profitable while offering completely fresh menu selections.
“You can’t have non-chefs making things from scratch,” Mansfield said. It took them some time, but the group of owners eventually figured out the correct recipes to keep “delivering consistency.”
The restaurant has four “lanes” of food:
• green bowls, which would compare to a salad.
• grain bowls, which include rice, quinoa and tofu.
• bone or vegetable broth bowls, which simmer all day.
• a vegetable bowl for the vegans and vegetarians.
“If you put good stuff (in your body), good stuff comes out,” Mansfield said. “It’s not rocket science.”
