healthy restaurant impresses fast-food lover

In a city with nine McDonald’s, six Taco Bells and four KFCs, it’s refreshing to eat lunch at a restaurant that serves fresh, healthy food that doesn’t come prepackaged or covered in grease – even if you’re a fast-food junkie, as I am.

Buffaloberries in downtown Sioux Falls makes serving healthy food its mission. In fact, the restaurant calls itself a “select ingredient bar” because, as its Web site states, “each ingredient has been carefully chosen for proven health benefits.”

When I ate at Buffaloberries for the first time last weekend, I’ll admit I was skeptical. I have a nasty habit of rejecting anything that sounds even remotely healthy. But I was determined to give Buffaloberries a try, mostly because I had heard the food wouldn’t even taste as though it were good for you – which was good enough for me.

All my doubts about the restaurant vanished once I saw the menu. As it turned out, the trouble would not be finding something I liked, but choosing from among the various menu options. From a selection of salads, soups, pizzitas (single-serving pizzas), pastas and sandwiches, I finally decided on a cup of tomato basil bisque soup and a Tuscan chicken melt – though I was seriously tempted to try the bison melt.

My boyfriend, who accompanied me on my journey into healthy restaurant options, ordered a pepperoni pizzita, which, interestingly enough, is nitrate-free and made on whole wheat pita. This pizzita, like many other menu items, also comes in a gluten-free option.

When the food arrived, I found myself a bit jealous I hadn’t ordered the pepperoni pizzita. My sandwich came with an excessive amount of black olives and red peppers, neither of which I particularly like. Still, once I scraped off the olives and peppers, the sandwich was tasty, albeit a bit spicy, and my boyfriend exchanged half of his pizzita for half of my sandwich.

The pizzita was clearly the better choice. Unlike pizza from Dominos or Little Caesars, this pizza didn’t require three or four napkins to soak up the excess grease. But my tomato basil bisque soup didn’t impress me, mostly because it had too much basil and not enough tomato. On the other hand, this could just be years of bias toward Campbell’s tomato soup talking.

In addition to its healthy food mission, the restaurant also makes it a priority to practice sustainability by using biodegradable packaging and supports fair trade of coffee, tea, sugar and chocolate. Signs in the restaurant also advertise the recyclaholics program, which works to eliminate waste and raise awareness about recycling.

The one downfall to Buffaloberries, as with most businesses in downtown Sioux Falls, is its hours. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and is also open Friday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m. Though the menu is geared toward lunch options, it would be nice to see this establishment open for regular dinner hours as well.

Despite this one disappointment, Buffaloberries is a restaurant to keep in mind when deciding whether to eat lunch at McDonald’s or Taco Bell. It has something for even the unhealthiest of people, and let’s be honest: Your love handles will thank you for it later.