A first-of-its-kind bistro and grocery focused on an all-Ketogenic menu including prepared meals ready to go is now open in Jacksonville.
PangeaKeto at 14474 Beach Blvd. at San Pablo Road aims to provide tasty as well as healthy meals, snacks, desserts and other food designed for people following the Ketogenic (Keto) diet and lifestyle, founder Jeff Zucal told the Times-Union.
PangeaKeto is located in a former Taco Bell building adjacent to the Publix-anchored Intracoastal Plaza shopping center in Jacksonville’s Intracoastal West area. The building with its drive-thru window most recently was home to the former House of Leaf & Bean, which opened in 2017, then closed and rebranded at Hakka Kitchen but closed permanently in December 2022 after a year.
Within a week, there will be a PangeaKeto app so customers can order their food then use the drive-thru to pick it up without leaving their cars, he said.
Jacksonville is the first PangeaKeto location in Florida. It joins the original in North Canton, Ohio, and a second in Friendswood, Texas, according to its website.
Keto is a very low-carbohydrate diet that involves eating more protein and certain fats. PangeaKeto says it is “the first 100% ketogenic grocery and eatery.” It offers more than 250 proprietary products for people following the Keto lifestyle.
Zucal said PangeaKeto also focuses on accommodating people with special dietary needs such as those with diabetes or celiac disease, offering sugar-free and gluten-free foods.
The goal, he said, is for people to lower the amount of prescription drugs they use through the foods they eat, which is the keto lifestyle of natural, low-carb and nutritious foods.
“I like the phrase, ‘we’re the pharmacy of the future.’ I want food to be your medicine,” Zucal said.
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What does PangeaKeto mean?
Zucal said the name PangeaKeto reflects the restaurant’s roots in healthy natural foods such as found about 200 million years ago. Pangea was a supercontinent at that time, which once incorporated almost all the landmasses on Earth.
“We like to say that we use [natural] ingredients…