VALDOSTA – The Power Eatery opened a couple of months ago.

The new restaurant is owned by Chat DuBois. He also owns DuMEALZ.

DuMEALZ is a healthy meal prep company. The goal of the company is to help residents “lose weight, feel great and have more energy by preparing meals for customers throughout the week,” DuBoise said.

The new restaurant takes the same mentality as DuMEALZ and strives to provide healthy food for customers by giving them options and meeting people where they are.

“I’m not going to sit here and say ‘oh, you don’t eat healthily? Now you have to do this crazy plan and do this, this and this.’ No, I’m like: ‘What do you like? What foods do you eat? OK, now let’s adjust that.’

“In all the years of training I did – 12 years of personal training – I found you put people on this strict regimen they fall off the wagon so easily, but if you meet them where they are, then you can help them step by step. It’s a journey.”

While opening a healthy restaurant may seem like a natural progression for a meal prep company, it is a step that DuBoise has been hesitant to take.

DuBoise said he decided to open a restaurant after one of his friends encouraged him.

“He has been trying to get me into the restaurant business for a while, and he knows that I had a desire to be in the restaurant business, but I knew the restaurant business was really tough,” DuBoise said. “You know people are waiting for their food. It’s been something I’ve been kind of scared to do. I finally had the courage to do it.”

Part of DuBoise’s courage stemmed from him opening a second kitchen for DuMEALZ. His new kitchen allowed him to take some time away from the business until “something came over” him, he said. So, DuBoise called his friend, who owned the former restaurant The Draw where The Power Eatery is now located, to see if he was still selling the restaurant.

Since opening, DuBoise said he has been putting 80 hours a week into the restaurant, so he understands how restaurants work.

“I want to know how it works so that if something happens in the kitchen, I can take it over,” he said.

DuBoise focuses on having fresh, made-to-order food items such as fish, steak, hamburgers and chicken.

DuBoise has plans to create a garden in the restaurant so fresh seasonings are grown in-house.

“We are trying to figure out how much we need to plant and rotate as we use our own herbs,” he said.

Aside from the pasta, DuBoise said “everything is made from scratch. Our ranch dressing, our Caesar dressing, our honey mustard, our hot sauces, our spicy mayonnaise – everything is made from scratch.”

Because the food is made fresh and to order, DuBoise said he has many diet-friendly options for some of the menu items. This includes the keto diet. Keto is a low-carbohydrate diet that has recently gained popularity.

For DuBoise, the restaurant is different from DuMEALZ because it allows him to connect with customers in a way DuMEALZ never has.

“Here I can actually cook one meal for them fresh and hot. Another thing is some people don’t want to eat food out of the containers. They don’t want rewarmed food. They just don’t want to spend $8 for that. They would rather get a burger somewhere.”

This connection has allowed him “to provide them with the food I think they need to be eating but in a healthy, fresh manner.”

Originally, DuBoise wanted to operate the restaurant under the DuMEALZ name because of the deep connection between the two businesses, but he decided the businesses need to be branded differently because of the “stigma attached to (DuMEALZ) and that it’s just food out of containers.”

Because the restaurant is so closely tied with the meal-prep business, DuBoise has the restaurant set up where customers can order meal plans through the restaurant. He said it allows customers who do not like the meal-prep model a chance to eat healthy on a regular basis. 

And if customers can’t stay to eat a pre-bought meal at The Power Eatery, they can swap out their fresh meal for one prepared in advance.

DuBoise said he looks forward to having cooking classes to help residents learn how to cook healthy food and begin looking at how to design a franchise around his meal-preparation and restaurant businesses.

While the business is no longer called The Draw, DuBoise has maintained the drawing aspect of the former establishment at The Power Eatery. Light tablets, coloring utensils and coloring pages are available for customers.

The Power Eatery, 3338 Country Club Road, Suite G, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. DuBoise said hours may change in the coming months. For more information, call (229) 588-4996. 

Jason Smith is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1257.