LYFE Kitchen

LYFE Kitchen
6201 Poplar Avenue
901-684-5333

I've been on a bit of a healthy eating kick, so LYFE has been on my list for several weeks. We finally made it last Saturday for lunch. The monkeys weren't super excited about it, but they humored me. Well, one of them did.



The building is really beautiful and I love the look and feel of it. I like the patio area a lot.



There's also a separate bar and lounge area inside, which I don't quite get, but ok.



And they even have inspirational quotes, including one of my favorites.



Unfortunately it is an order at the counter and sit down type of place. I don't always hate places like this, but it does make that first visit extra awkward.

We went in and got in the line. There was a brochure holder and I grabbed what I thought was a menu, but it turned out to be a catering menu. The regular menu was on the wall, but it was blocked by the people in front of us. By the time we could see it, we didn't have a lot of time to make up our minds. At the last minute, Satchel decided he wanted nothing, Jiro settled for a burger and banana smoothie, and I went with the salmon. Our total was $29.76, which was a little surprising. Everyone has been raving about the low prices, but typically I would expect to spend $30 for the three of us, not just two of us.

Oh the other funny thing was that when Jiro asked for ketchup on his burger he was told that they did not have ketchup. I could only guess it was due to the sugar content? But again, note that they have a separate bar & lounge. Maybe they have special healthy booze? If so, sign me up!

Anyway, we went to find a table. On the way, we stopped at the water station, which features regular, sparkling and ambient water on tap. Ha! WTF is ambient water?



Oh wait. I get it. One is "chilled" so the ambient might be just room temperature? I went with sparkling.



When we sat down, Satchel said, "The one thing I like about this place is that they have wifi." He and Jiro proceeded to watch videos and I proceeded to observe my fellow diners. Everyone seemed a little lost, but excited. Even the staff seemed lost. We had a electronic number thingy to put on our table--you know the thing that would typically buzz and tell you that your order is ready? Well this one didn't do anything. My guess is that it had a GPS or something that the runners were supposed to figure out back in the kitchen. Take it from me, they were not figuring it out. I saw them walking all over the place with plates and drinks and whatnot.

At some point the manager looking dude was able to track down Jiro and deliver his Banilla smoothie. He deemed it yummy.



A little later, the burger and salmon arrived. Jiro almost lost his shit when he saw the burger.



I had to remove all of the offending toppings, including some remoulade type sauce and get it as far away as possible before he would eat it. (I thought it looked yummy.)



He ate most of it and then Satchel finished it. Later they joked about the hippie bun it came on.

My salmon was 100% yum.



It seemed a little bit small--I think maybe they have some calorie standards? It filled me up enough, but I'm not sure it was worth $14.

The LYFE headquarters and another restaurant are moving into the old Chisca hotel, which is literally next door to my office, so I am sure at some point I will be a loyal customer, but for now, I will probably not make another special trip out east. Unless they do in fact have healthy booze.