Deli & Kitchen
Our prepared foods department is one of the most sought after sections in our store. We combine amazing ingredients using our famous house-recipes and strive to offer a wide variety of foods that you won’t find anywhere else. Some things you might find include: local foods, vegetarian & vegan dishes, gluten-free meals, low sodium options, natural meat, poultry and seafood selections, made to order sandwiches, wraps, soup and delicious sushi.
Since these dishes are our creations, we hold a high level of quality standards in our kitchen. We use the same ingredient standards that our store uses when creating, to include:
Pure Ingredients: We strictly adhere to our stores list of banned ingredients in our prepared foods. You won’t find any artificial colors, preservatives, ingredients or synthetic additives in any of our prepared foods. All of our ingredients are natural or organic and sourced locally whenever available. These ingredients are always listed on the dishes place card.
Healthy Options: We’re big on health, it’s one characteristic that we strive to showcase in all of our dishes. Offering not only delicious, but healthy dishes for you and your family. We constantly strive to offer fresh, local, organic vegetables and greens on our hot bar, salad bar and raw bar. We primarily use plant-based ingredients in our dishes, which have been proven to be very nutrient dense.
Plant Based Diets: In conjunction with offering organic, hormone & antibiotic-free meats, we strive to make sure that the majority of our prepared food offerings are plant-based. With backed studies in favor of plant-based dietsfrom physicians such as T. Colin Campbell PhD, Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Mehmet Cengiz Oz, and Dr. Andrew Weil M.D., our recipes host an abundance of nutrient dense vegetables and plant foods. The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada say that plant-based diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Vegetarians also have lower rates of the following health problems: death from heart disease, blood cholesterol levels, blood pressure, hypertension, type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. We’re not claiming that a plant-based diet is the way to go for all. However, if you’re looking for healthy vegetarian and vegan options, we certainly have you covered.
Specialty Diets: Offering vegetarian, dairy-free, raw, gluten-free, low sugar, and low sodium dishes is something that we’ve always done. Coming to our store for lunch or dinner shouldn’t surprise you regardless of your diet restrictions. No matter what you choose to eat (or what you don’t choose to), you’ll find options and variety in our prepared foods.
Local Ingredients: Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia offer a wide variety of delicious, local veggies, meats and tofu that we include in our prepared foods as often as possible. Whether it’s the local kale in our raw kale salad or the local, organic tofu in our vegan dishes, we use local ingredients whenever available. If you try something you like, you’ll be able to find that same product on the shelf and take it home with you that day. Buying directly from farmers and producers keeps money in the economy and creates sustainable relationships with those growers.
Locally-Made Dishes: When browsing our hot bar or deli case, you might come across an integrity pin that read “locally-made.” This indicator refers to a dish that was made locally in the Rockville community. These dishes are brought in by local restaurants that we’ve established strong partnerships with. Before bringing in outside food, our Food Service Manager and Purchasing Director have inspected the suppliers ingredients, kitchen and cooking methods to make sure they meet the same standards we hold to our own food. Finally, if we come back for seconds, then and only then will that dish hold the “locally-made” integrity pin.
Transparency: All ingredients in our dishes are openly listed and displayed. If you have any questions regarding ingredients, our deli stewards are glad to help you in any way possible. Our deli counter offers a nutritional guidebook at all times listing each dish we make and the nutritional facts and ingredients. We’re not hiding anything here, nor do we ever plan to.
Great Taste: Finally, we’re going to make sure our food tastes good. Each dish, sandwich or soup is tasted before it goes onto the floor. If you’re curious as to how a dish tastes before you buy it, we offer sample cups at the deli counter. If you buy something that you’re not fully satisfied with, we offer a no questions-asked refund with your receipt.