Fresh Prep Pittsburgh offers eat-in and takeout options in Penn Hills

Bobby Franklin grew up playing sports. The constant movement in his youth kept his metabolism up and a few fries never mattered.

When he stopped playing sports and began working full time, like most people who grew up as athletes, he realized his days of fast food on the go were coming to an end.

“I enjoy cooking,” Franklin said. “I played sports my whole life, but as I got out of sports and graduated and got into my profession, my metabolism slowed down. I wasn’t able to eat the foods that I was used to eating without it really affecting how I felt.”

Franklin, 39, of Penn Hills began to cook new dishes, pairing healthier options to meal prep throughout the week.

Then some of his family and friends started asking him to help with their diets. Despite being active and working out regularly, he said, their main struggle was with what they ate during their commutes or for dinner after work.

Once he began cooking for others, demand for his food and the meal prep plan grew into a business, Fresh Prep Pittsburgh, a meal prep company that he officially founded in 2019.

“It forced me to kind of dive more into the business and figure out if it was something that we could actually make come to fruition,” Franklin said.

After three months of running the business online and cooking in his house, he had to expand because of growing interest in Fresh Prep. Since then, Franklin has hired a team to cook meals using recipes he creates and opened a storefront in September on Saltsburg Road in Penn Hills that offers eat-in and takeout options.

“We wanted to open (the business) up to a bigger demographic and allow them to come in and pick from healthier options that they can either heat up on the spot or take with them,” Franklin said.

He said the age range of customers has widened since the store opened because the business isn’t limited to online ordering anymore.

When he thinks of meals, Franklin said he tries to keep some of the same food options available for customers so they can incorporate their favorite selections into new meals that they customize.

“A lot of other meal prep companies usually change their menu up every week or month, and you kinda just have to pick what they have available,” Franklin said.

When ordering meal prep online, customers can select from portioned proteins, vegetables and carbs. The meals start at $14 with discounts kicking in at an order of five or more meals. Every order is shipped by the company rather than a third-party distributor.

“You know that you’re going to be eating something healthy and that what you’re putting into your body will be good for it,” he said.

Franklin said it took about a year to set up his storefront and get the proper licenses to be able to sell food out of the building.

“We always talked about a storefront and taking the business to the next level even though we still offer online orders,” said Franklin’s wife, Dianna. “There’s convenience to the grab-and-go option. We have smoothies and smoothie bowls here in addition to what we have in our grab-and-go fridge.”

Dianna heads the marketing and sales side of business and has maintained a full-time job in that area of expertise while working on Fresh Prep with her husband. To help balance taking orders, customer service and inquiries, she took on getting the word out about the business with partnerships, events and promotions.

“I just kind of jumped all in,” she said.

Fresh Prep Pittsburgh also offers catering for events, and the workload for those orders is handled between them.

“We have options that we provide in the fridge for catering, but we do have other options available that aren’t so healthy for our other clientele,” Franklin said. “We try to have a little bit of something for everybody.”

Some of the “not so healthy” options include fried chicken, fried cod, cajun pasta, mac and cheese with an option of lobster, smothered pork chops with gravy and braised beef short ribs.

Dianna said that since they’ve opened the storefront, they have had a lot of foot traffic and return customers. The couple will be hosting events in the store soon with their first one scheduled for Feb. 24. A personal trainer will offer a how-to stretch session, a nutritionist will speak to guests, and Franklin and Dianna will present some of their recipes.

“We want to get the locals in here and show them what we do,” Franklin said.