Make-ahead meal services multiply

When Tina Kuna and Stephanie Allen opened up their first Dream Dinners store in a South Everett business park in 2002, they knew they had a good idea.

But not even they could have predicted that their business model, born from their once-a-month habit of cooking with friends to stock their freezers with family dinners, would launch a whole new food-service concept: meal assembly kitchens.

Do-it-yourself stores where customers put together a dozen meals in two hours or less are a national trend, according to the trade publication Ad Age. Nationwide, there are more than 200 such companies operating upward of 500 storefront kitchens, and the number is growing steadily.

Dream Dinners is a leader in this trend. The Snohomish-based company opened its 100th store in January in California; 52 more are in build-out stage. By the end of this year the company expects to franchise 120 more. Four years ago, Dream Dinners' modest Everett storefront generated 20,000 servings a month. Today, Kuna estimates 2 million servings a month are assembled in Dream Dinners kitchens nationwide.

The idea is deliciously simple: For about $200 and two hours of time, customers can fill their freezers with meals designed to serve from four to six . Chosen from menus that change monthly, each dish easily can be customized for a family's needs. More garlic, less spice, fewer mushrooms, hold the pork — no problem.

The sales hook is irresistible: Spend less time in the kitchen, the grocery aisles or the fast-food outlets and more time around the dinner table with your family enjoying home-cooked meals.

Is it any surprise that the women who birthed this idea are working moms?

Dream Dinners was the first to standardize the meal-assembly concept, which is growing nationally and spawning more local competitors, too (see 2), notably Dinners Ready!, a Mukilteo-based franchise that currently has 27 stores with eight others opening soon and 30 more projected before year's end.

But even early on, Kuna and Allen didn't have the field to themselves: Month of Meals pioneered the idea in 1999 and Cuizam! opened in 2003, both in Kirkland.

Cuizam! proved short-lived, closing last December. But Month of Meals, now in Redmond, is thriving, says owner Kay Conley, though she has taken the idea to another level of service.

Month of Meals customers need no longer come into the kitchen at all. Instead they place their orders for a minimum of 12 entrees, with no limits on number of servings, and make an appointment to pick up their food. For an extra fee, they will send frozen meals via courier or DHL.

"The competition was getting customers in and out in two hours. We couldn't do that and maintain the quality standards we had set," notes Conley.

Another local company, 5-year-old Delicious Planet, is offering to prepare and deliver gourmet meals, most of which are made with organic ingredients, to the customer's doors.

Saving time is the big draw for Dream Dinners' customer Tara Shadduck, a 36-year-old art consultant and regular monthly "guest" at the Dream Dinners store in Shoreline owned by Shellee Fetzer and Monique Taylor (who are themselves former Dream Dinners regulars).

"It's not the cost savings, it's the time savings," says Shadduck. "The time I save going at the grocery store and cleaning up is worth it."

She enjoys cooking and likes to prepare a big Sunday dinner for her husband, Steve Wangen, a naturopathic physician, and their 4-year-old son, Roman. Those leftovers usually stretch for another night's meal. "I went through a phase where I'd try to cook enough on weekends so I didn't have to cook on weeknights," she says. "This way I come home [from Dream Dinners] with the equivalent of nine meals and my kitchen is clean."

Shadduck often attends the sessions with her sister, Jannette Cline, who also has a young child. They buy the 12-meal package (each serves 4-6) and split it among their families. As a bonus, the sisters get to enjoy a night out together once a month.

Another advantage for Shadduck: Because she puts together each meal, she knows what's in it, an important consideration because her husband has allergies to wheat and dairy.

The atmosphere at Dream Dinners is relaxed and convivial. The setup is so streamlined that customers can assemble each meal in minutes. Recipes are posted at a dozen meticulous workstations where all the ingredients are chopped, prepped and at the ready — what professional chefs would call the mise en place.

The required measuring cup or spoon rests in or near each container. The meat or seafood is preportioned. "If you spill something the cleanup fairies are right there to wipe it up," says Shadduck, referring to the shop assistants who maintain and replenish the workstations.

Shadduck arrives for her session straight from her Bellevue office and walks right into a hug from owners Taylor and Fetzer. Slipping off the jacket of her smart pantsuit, she dons an apron, stuffs the pockets with gallon-size zippered plastic bags, washes her hands and rolls up her sleeves.

She has preselected her meal choices — the menu rotates but many items are familiar to her by now. She moves quickly from station to station, observing, "One of the things I love is that you don't have to think too much. If you need a tablespoon of something, it's right there."

Still Shadduck scrutinizes the ingredient list for each dish, making adjustments as needed to accommodate her husband's allergies and her family's food preferences.

She substitutes cooked chicken for the beef tips in a marinara sauce. She takes the bag of penne pasta that comes with it, but for her husband she will cook gluten-free noodles that she stocks at home.

In recipes that call for soy sauce, like Sweet Cider BBQ Chicken with Seasoned Rice or Chicken Lo Mein, she simply leaves it out and makes a note of the quantity needed on the preprinted cooking-instruction label. At home she will add that amount of wheat-free soy sauce to the dish.

Shadduck also omits water chestnuts from the lo mein because she doesn't like them and goes easy on the minced ginger, which she often finds too pungent.

She grabs the bag of grated cheese for the Arroz Con Pollo, but at home when she bakes the layered casserole of chicken, black beans and rice in salsa, she will sprinkle the cheese over just half of it.

As she seals each bag she massages the contents so that the ingredients meld and the meats or vegetables are integrated with the sauce. She also has learned the trick of flattening bags of liquids for the freezer, so they take up less space.

A little over an hour later, Shadduck is done. Before she leaves she schedules her next session and selects the menu. From the cooler by the door, she retrieves a carton stacked high with neatly bagged food for her freezer at home.

"When I go to Dream Dinners my husband always says, 'Thanks for cooking,' " Shadduck laughs. "He never says that when I actually cook."

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com