Fit Foodz Cafe in The Reserve

We were invited to try Fit Foodz Cafe and stopped in for lunch today. It’s located in The Reserve, the plaza on the southeast corner of Clint Moore and 441. Within the plaza they are in the smaller building on the east side along Clint Moore. Despite the map below, the entrance is on the south side of the building, and does not face Clint Moore.

It’s effectively a center of health-consciousness with the It’s All Greek restaurant, a Pilates studio, a “Healthy Way” market, Fit Foodz and, well, Starbucks. They seem to go together so there’s a lot of cross-over customers for the various businesses.

Inside it’s small. We counted five tables and sixteen chairs. There are a few more tables outside. Here’s a panorama shot inside:

The menu has a lot of healthy choices. On the first visit it’s almost overwhelming. It’s mostly gluten-free and there are vegan options, a lot of fish and chicken, and even a few red meat choices.
We started with the juice blends and smoothies, trying two smoothies – chocolate-banana-peanut-butter, and a berry mix. You can get them with either skim milk or almond milk. We did one of each, and did not notice a difference. They were delicious. The chocolate & peanut butter one (with almond milk) was particularly rich and creamy.

Next we tried a couple of appetizers: Tuna tartare on avocado, and hummus with carrots and celery (pita chips are an option).

The tuna was excellent. The fish was fresh and cut into moderate size chunks, and covered with sesame seeds and a sweet sauce that may have been honey based. A dish like this would more typically use a soy based sauce but the sweetness worked well.

The hummus was also different. It seemed heavy on the tahini and maybe easy on the garlic, but that’s a guess. We liked it but it might not be what you expect if you eat a lot of hummus.
We also had two entrees. I went for the special, salmon chunks in a “zucchini pasta,” which was just zucchini cut up vaguely shaped like pasta. This was a wonderful dish, and it reflected what might be the core of Fit Foodz. You can see the quality. The ingredients are visible and distinct, not smothered and hidden in a sauce. There was a light broth at the bottom of the bowl that enhanced the flavor of the ingredients, but it didn’t drown them out.

My companion had the California grilled chicken, topped with avocado, tomato and mozzarella. As with the last dish the ingredients, like the mozzarella, were noticeably high grade. With that said, while good this dish could have used something to give it more flavor. It came with sweet potato rounds which were a nice touch.

On the whole we liked Fit Foodz Cafe and we will be back. Owner Susan was friendly and spent time answering our questions as well as those from other customers.

One issue is parking. There ain’t a lot of it. We found it easiest to park behind the Publix. Other customers often park in the main Publix lot.
Also, one of the things we noticed about Fit Foodz before we went is they have a “10-meal” package where you pay $75 and you get 10 meals to take home. They’re “weekly packaged portioned controlled individual meals.” We regret that we did not try any of these and didn’t think to ask about it while we were there.
There are also some attractive muffins and other baked items for dessert, mostly gluten-free. We were stuffed and decided not to try anything, but they looked good.

Disclosure: We were invited and we ate for free. We received no other compensation.