Entree Kitchen in Carol Stream does healthy meal prep for you

Diane Beaulieu was 7 months pregnant with twins when she had a major life realization.

She had a full-time job, a 3-year-old son and a husband who traveled frequently. Exhausted by the end of the day, she was increasingly turning to delivery and takeout meals for dinner.

And she suddenly realized it wasn't going to get any easier.

“What I was going through at the moment physically was only going to be worse on two hours of sleep, after delivering the babies,” the West Chicago mom recalled. “I realized I needed a game plan.”

That plan brought her to Entrée Kitchen, a meal preparation service. Beaulieu had been a happy customer of nearly two years when the owner suddenly announced the business was for sale. She panicked. “What are we going to do for food?” she asked her husband. “Immediately, he said, 'We should buy it.'”

And they did, in 2009. Since then, the couple has expanded the business, tripling sales and its number of members with a concept that is clearly resonating with busy, on-the-go families.

Meals are assembled at the Entrée Kitchen location in Carol Stream. At the site, there are 14 recipe stations with raw ingredients organized and ready to go; customers assemble the meal, following recipe directions and personalizing it for their family.

Current dinner options include Parmesan Chicken Tenders, Beef and Broccoli Lo Mein, Cranberry Glazed Pork Tenderloin and Chicken Mirabella. Customers often come in on the weekend, Beaulieu says, and spend an hour or so assembling dinners and leaving with enough food for the week.

Meals can also be ordered in advance, or picked up at the center or at other suburban locations. “It's nice to know dinner can be done so quickly, and customers rely on that,” Beaulieu says. “Dinner is just 30 minutes away, and you don't have to slave over the stove. For busy moms, this is such a lifesaver.”

After initially laughing at her husband's suggestion to buy the company, Beaulieu began to take it seriously. She already had management experience in the hospitality and restaurant industries, and she realized the idea made sense.

In a strange twist of fate, she was laid off by the company she had worked at for 14 years, literally 18 hours before the closing of the business. In retrospect, she says, the timing couldn't have been better, as it allowed her to focus her efforts full-time to growing the business. “There was a plan,” she says. “I just didn't know someone else was controlling my plan.”

As the new owner of Entrée Kitchen, Beaulieu reopened the meal assembly session component, began offering fresh and frozen grab and go entrees, expanded the delivery area and transformed the menu. New side and dessert items were added, along with gluten-free items.

The added a party program for children's birthdays, with kids able to make cupcakes and pizzas, and have built community partnerships, such as with Wheaton Sports Center, to promote issues like healthy eating.

As with any business, the venture has come with plenty of challenges, particularly in the early days, when Beaulieu's twins were still in diapers and their son was 4. Beaulieu recalls many difficult days of juggling managing the business and her family, on little sleep. But her customer base continued to grow — indicating a strong need for her type of food service.

Katie Fischer, a mom of three in Carol Stream, has been a member for two years. She was hooked after taking one of the meal assembly sessions with her kids. “I just loved the whole idea of the kids being involved, having to figure the math of the recipes and learning about cooking with real vegetables,” she says.

Now she doesn't think much about meal planning. At the start of each week, she takes out several frozen entrees to defrost and cooks them throughout the week. “It's healthy, it's filling and it satisfies the kids' picky eating habits,” she says. “I just love the idea of not having to think at all about dinner.”

Today, Beaulieu sees expansion in their future. She has grown the business from starting with three part-time employees to nine workers now and serving customers in 17 suburbs.

“We've never looked back,” she says. “It was one of the most wonderful things we've ever chosen to do.”

To learn more, visit www.entreekitchen.com.