Fans of Reston’s Big Bowl and McLean’s Wildfire can now recreate the restaurants’ cuisine in their own kitchens. Online grocer Peapod partnered with these two Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE) restaurants to develop three new meal kits.
The meal kits debuted last month on Peapod’s website and include Big Bowl Sweet and Sour Chicken, Wildfire Beef Tenderloin and Wildfire BBQ Bison Meatloaf.
Peapod has been offering meal kits since 2014 and frequently partners with retail companies like Uncle Ben’s, Barilla and Campbell’s to produce meals that individuals can create from the comfort of home, but this is their first restaurant collaboration.
“Consumers love the restaurant experience but can’t always get out,” says Tony Stallone, vice president of Perishables and Meal Solutions for Peapod. “We created the perfect combination of a restaurant experience at home that is not diminished by the takeout experience. We believe we are the first to partner with a restaurant to make this a reality.”
Unlike many meal delivery companies, everything in these kits is pre-measured, washed, chopped and in some cases, completely ready to cook, like the marinade for the beef tenderloin.
“I ordered a number of other Peapod meal kits to understand their culture and how these meal kits were put together,” explains Joe Decker, executive chef and partner at LEYE. “It was very easy and fun to adapt restaurant-quality dishes to the meal kit format because I often cook at home and understand the limitations of cooking restaurant-quality food at home.”
So far, the Big Bowl and Wildfire kits have been incredibly popular on the site. “We are hearing great feedback from adults and they are telling us their kids love them too,” Stallone says. “We have several more recipes to roll out over the summer, including grilling kits.”
The kits range from $5.25 to $9.48 per serving and can be ordered online without a subscription. // Peapod
