In addition to being “weird” and crazy about music, Austinites are also known for their love of fresh, local produce and food. Snap Kitchen, an Austin-based grocery franchise with a sub-branch in Houston, focuses on healthy eating by selling nutritional, freshly made meals to-go.

Martin Berson, creator of the franchise, said the making of Snap Kitchen, which opened in April 2010, was a long process. Before opening Snap, Berson was a managing partner at Benjy’s, a restaurant in Houston before moving to Austin three years ago. Berson had planned to take a year off to relax, but his plans changed quickly.

“I thought I wanted to detox and have fun, but I was going crazy after three months,” Berson said. “I was trying to develop hobbies and I just couldn’t. I worked for a hobby. That’s what I do. That’s my one hobby.”

Berson said he knew he wanted to get back into the food business, but didn’t know exactly where he wanted to go within the industry.

“[With Benjy’s,] we had a full-service upscale, hip restaurant with a lounge area upstairs, and it was great, but my first nine years I worked 100 hours a week and I was there until three, four in the morning every Friday and Saturday night,” he said. “I knew that I didn’t want that again. So once I realized that, it was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to do something more casual.'”

For several years, Berson’s friends had been trying to convince him to open a restaurant that encouraged healthy lifestyle and food choices, but initially Berson didn’t think that it was something he could pull off on a large, long-term scale.

After encouragement from a friend, who originally planned to move to Austin with him, Berson began looking into the possibility of being able to take fully-cooked dishes and cool them down to temperature while retaining flavor.

He became fully committed to his new project even without a partner to help him and began looking for available real estate around Austin.

In the end, Berson wound up opening the stores with someone else, Bradley Radoff, and they started talking about what their food philosophies were.

Berson hired a local chef and a registered dietician to work for him. Both evaluate items on the Snap Kitchen menu, which come in small, medium and large portion sizes. Colored flags label each dish that indicate if the dish is gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, or diabetic-friendly, among others.

“We’re local and all about Austin,” Berson said. “We buy as much as possible from Austin or directly around Austin.”

For instance, Berson said, Snap Kitchen buys kale (a type of cabbage) from a woman at Farm to Table, and whatever she has on any particular day is what’s at Snap Kitchen. And while the kale itself is not specifically organic, it is grown using organic practices.

“So we don’t say we’re all organic, but we do use as much as we can, when it makes sense,” Berson said.

Once they had a menu, Berson said the next thing to focus on was the appearance of the stores.

The layout of Snap Kitchen includes an open floor plan to allow customers to see right into the kitchen, so they can know exactly what is happening with their food and trust that they are getting quality meals.

“I don’t want there ever to be questions about what we are or aren’t doing,” Berson said.

Snap Kitchen has a program called Snap Commit, a 21-day program for people who want to get on the fast track to healthy eating and weight loss.

Snap Kitchen also donates all of its food that has sat on a shelf for more than a few days to local food banks. In addition, all of the packaging is recyclable and reusable for the customers.

“We spend a lot of money to make sure we have the absolute best packaging that we can, but it’s worth it,” Berson said. “Recycling is great, but if you can reuse something that’s a whole lot better.”

In addition to the wide variety of pre-packaged dishes available, Snap Kitchen also has a salad bar where customers can order fresh-tossed salads.

Above all, Berson said he strives to help customers have a good experience in the store, and deliver quality nutritional food to go.

“In that few minutes that we’ve got with someone, let’s make sure we greet them, are honest with them, and are there and accessible and can go over and above what the expectation is,” Berson said. “That’s kind of our mantra, if you will.”