The real future of meal assembly centers might lie in tapping into the increasing special-dietary-needs market, providing meal prep for those with diabetes, high blood pressure, food allergies, and other conditions or lifestyles. “That’s going to be real genius,” Romanczak says.

Some meal-prep companies already are tapping green and niche diners. Ceres’ Kitchen, one of five meal-assembly brands in Colorado Springs, creates all-organic menus with gluten- and lactose-free options. Though higher end ingredients sometimes drive up costs, prices at Ceres’ track with other non-organic meal-assembly outlets—around $3 per meal.

Grace’s Kitchen, another Washington meal-prep event space with an organic twist, opened its doors in April 2003 and by the following July had gone retail with home-cooked epicurean meals for two (think mustard-crusted Ahi tuna nicoise and chipotle bean cakes with corn chowder). The company, run by a former Cinnabon executive, quickly became a manufacturer. Today its all-natural frozen meal kits for two are distributed nationally to retailers. The gourmet meals sell for under $8 per serving, and like meal-prep outlet dinners, can be prepared in less than half an hour. They contain no additives, preservatives, genetically modified organisms, colorings, flavorings or sweeteners, and meat is free of hormones and antibiotics.

Quick-serve restaurants might want to keep an eye on these segments and consider whether offering separate menus for special-needs diets is an option that would work within the chain’s concept, Romanczak says. Major supermarket chains and food co-ops—which already have vast food supply chains and often have delis where prep happens—might be well-positioned to tap into the success of meal-prep centers, but quick-serve restaurants also can learn and possibly take cues from them, he says.

Meal-prep centers draw life from the fact that about 77 percent of meals are eaten at home. Quick-service chains have evolved in recent years to more effectively feed folks in their own homes. Drive-thru and takeout sales have skyrocketed in recent years—from $104 million in 2000 to $274 million in 2005—largely due to the addition of curbside takeout by major players like Applebee’s and Outback Steakhouse, as well as technical innovations like internet pre-ordering for counter service at Subway’s and other quick-serve outlets. “Applebee’s went from 5 percent to 10 percent of carryout with curbside service,” Romanczak says.

These sales indicate that quick-serve is, in new ways, feeding the desire for families to gather around their own tables. Meal-prep concepts go a step further and deliver a month’s worth of pre-packaged frozen meals that can be cooked quickly.

“You have a whole niche here developing before our eyes, and it’s going to change the way we do business in the future,” Romanczak says. “The American consumer is not stupid. What they see is, ‘If I can get fresh meals for a week, and do it for a price point that’s below what I get at a restaurant—I see the value. And it’s in my neighborhood.’

Tapping consumer tastes on this trend might not necessarily mean a huge shift, like when Friday’s and Boston Market jumped into the retail sector by licensing to manufacturers. “Look at what you can do in-house,” Romanczak says. Is delivery possible? How about a grab-and-go case with frozen make-at-home entrees? How about grab-and-go dessert?

Restaurants are also tinkering with ideas about incorporating meal-prep events. “We’re starting to see restaurants saying they want to do something like this, to expand their business to offer meal prep once or twice a week,” Vasquez says.

Pies and Plates, a gourmet breakfast and lunch eatery and upscale kitchen store in Punta Gorda, Florida, recently made the jump into meal assembly. Owners plan to open a new, larger location in a couple years and decided meal prep meshed well with the company’s focus as, “not just a place to shop and eat, but an adventure.”

“We were afraid someone else would come into the market, and we’d rather be leading the pack,” owner Cindee Murphy says. “We have a real advantage being an established business. We have chefs that understand recipes. We have an existing customer base.”

Pies and Plates Prepped and Ready was quickly born. After the first few sold-out sessions, however, meal assembly was moved to a separate storefront location because additional storage and refrigeration was a problem. “It’s been a wild ride,” Murphy says. “I don’t recommend that anyone just dabble in this.”

Pies and Plates’ clientele is largely retirees, many of whom have decades of kitchen experience, so entrees are smaller and gourmet—pecan-crusted pork medallions with red-onion marmalade, Asian-herb baked chicken—perfect for entertaining after a day out golfing. Initial menus proved too complex and time-consuming to assemble, so chefs scaled it back somewhat. Since it’s a cooking store, there are still recipes that require stuffing a chicken breast, reducing a sauce or tying up something with twine.

Operators in the quick-service industry should be visiting such meal-assembly centers, seeing what works about the concept, and mulling over changes that might draw on their success, Romanczak suggests. Can restaurants offer weekly cooking classes to connect with busy diners who want to learn culinary skills and socialize? Meal-prep–company users say they like knowing what’s in their food because it makes them feel they’re feeding their families healthier food. How can the quick-serve industry replicate this sense of comfort and knowledge over ingredients?

“It’s a wakeup call to every major chain in the country that these meal assembly centers are not to be trifled with,” he says. “If I was a major executive, I’d have a membership in every center around me to learn what the customer wants and what they’re doing right. But this is more sociological than anything. It’s what bars were to the ’80s. People don’t know their neighbors, and we don’t grow up with families around the table. Become a member and see how they interact.”