Local restaurants offer customers healthy options

Chicken Mobay is one of the healthy choice menu items at Curly's Grill & Banquet Center. 

With health issues such as obesity and heart disease on the rise, many restaurants are including healthy options on their menus.

Curly’s Grill & Banquet Center, Shadow Lounge & Restaurant, and Subway are three local restaurants that are offering customers healthy menu options.

Curly’s Grill & Banquet Center is a third-generation family owned restaurant at 647 Ridge Road in Lackawanna.  Curly’s offer customers the opportunity to choose from a wide array of gluten-free and healthy-choice menu items.

Krista Van Wagner and her husband Kirk Van Wagner have been the owners of Curly’s for 25 years. As graduates of the Culinary Institute of America, they offer lunch and dinner items that are made daily, from scratch.

“We are a healthy venue because we are a scratch house,” said Krista Van Wagner. “There are a lot of boxed foods out there loaded with salt, MSG and trans fats. We peel every potato and we make our bread from scratch.”

Van Wagner said she goes out of her way to not only take care of the trends, but to cater to the needs of customers. Van Wagner has been featuring gluten-free menu items for 15 years. 

“With the new rules and regulations coming in and the chains having to put the calories on each menu item, I felt I wanted to be competitive with them,” said Van Wagner.

Van Wagner teamed up with Healthy NY through the independent health and the Erie County Board of Health to put together an opportunity for restaurants in the area to join.

“It’s a way to put our recipes in,” said Van Wagner. “It will also tell us all the nutritional facts and the calories of each menu item.”

Curly’s lunch and dinner menus feature a wide array of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and entrees.  For lunch or dinner, customers can choose Curly’s black bean soup ($5), a popular gluten-free and healthy- choice item made with diced onion and sour cream.

For dinner, customers can choose healthy-choice and gluten-free entrees such as chicken mobay ($20), a wood fired bone-in chicken breast made with spicy mango-banana curry sauce or  “wolf-fit entrees” which includes the choices of sweet potato puree, fire roasted vegetables and chimichurri chicken breast ($19), fresh fish fillet ($26), or scallops ($26).

Through her menu items, Van Wagner not only hopes that customers take the opportunity to eat healthy, but that they also enjoy eating healthy.

 “Not only is our food healthy, it also tastes good,” said Van Wagner. “We make healthy food taste good, and people don’t think that healthy food can taste good. We use fresh herbs and spices and olive oils to add taste.”

Shadow Restaurant & Lounge is a family owned restaurant at 1504 Hertel Ave. Executive chef Christopher Andres offers customers the opportunity to choose from healthy alternatives such as salads and sandwiches.

“Any one of our salads is healthy,” said Andres. “They include grilled chicken, and nothing fried.”

Among Shadow Lounge & Restaurant’s healthy menu items is their walnut, encrusted goat cheese salad ($9).

“It’s a ball of goat cheese, encrusted with walnuts, which is served with fresh strawberries, and fresh oranges,” said Andres. “It’s a spring green mix and there’s fat free raspberry vinaigrette dressing that you can add.”

Shadow Lounge & Restaurant also offers a sandwich section and daily specials. Andres said the restaurant offers grilled proteins such as shrimp, chicken or beef.

“The beef is filleted so it’s very low in fat,” said Andres. “We also offer broiled fish, and we stay away from the creamy sauces as well.”

Andres said the restaurant accommodates the needs of all customers, whether they are meat lovers, vegans, or vegetarians.

“If someone has any specific dietary needs, we accommodate to whatever we can do best for them,” said Andres. “Whether it’s no carbs, if they’re vegan or if they’re vegetarian; if someone comes in and ask, there’ll be something available at all times for them.”

Subway is a sandwich chain restaurant that offers customers the opportunity to dine healthy with their  “Eat Fresh” menu selections.

At 1124 Elmwood Ave., Subway restaurant offers a variety of sandwiches and salads, all made with fresh ingredients.

Scott Annese, a server at Subway, said the restaurant offers healthy menu items which includes vegetables, and lean meats.

“We’re all about trying to be that alternative to greasy fast foods,” said Annese. “Out of our healthy items, our turkey sub is definitely a popular item.”   

“We have a vegetable sub, which is a sandwich with all the different vegetables on it and a vegetable patty,” added Annese. 

The veggie sub features a combination of lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, black olives, and onions with the choice of fat-free condiments. 

Though it may be considered a fast food restaurant, customers are able to enjoy healthier alternatives at Subway than they would at other fast food restaurants such as McDonalds or Burger King, according to Annese.

“That’s what Subway is about,” said Annese.  “I think the demand calls for healthier items because the world’s changing and people want to eat healthier.”