Kenny Garcia from Ewing, New Jersey, turned his culinary major into a lifestyle with his business, Kenny’s Meals. Whether his customers are looking to lose weight, bulk up with muscle or maintain a healthy diet, the meals provide tasty and nutritious options.
An experienced chef, Kenny consistently found himself meal prepping for his workout buddies. “My friends needed meals, and I knew how to make them,” Kenny said. Out of his home kitchen, he eventually prepared meals for them, leading him to do so for 20 people in a matter of weeks.
Another more personal reason for his business is his connection to patients. Kenny has been on dialysis for four years now, and when starting to prep meals for friends and early customers, he also reached out to patients to help maintain their diets through recovery. “Dialysis really changed my lifestyle,” Kenny said. “It’s a very draining process, but because I eat a little better, it’s not. That’s one of the reasons I started to help out people. I’m talking to dietitians to see if I can make meals for more patients.”
A friend of Kenny’s went away to Puerto Rico with meals already prepped and ready to go, courtesy of Kenny’s Meals. She’s been a customer since the business’s second week. Upon return, she had lost 23 pounds and no longer needed the heart surgery she was scheduled for.
Most of his deliveries today are within a ten-mile radius, except for a few lucky customers in South Jersey that Kenny delivers personally. As for the food, it has only been perfected since the debut of Kenny’s Meals, not to mention the addition of various cuisines over the months. “The menu changes every week,” Kenny said. “There’s American inspired, there’s Spanish food and Asian dishes as well.”
Orders come in on a weekly basis, where a customer purchases a weekly meal plan. While the most purchased meal of the day is from the lunch menu, the most popular meal plan includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Monday through Friday.
With the help of his team, Kenny prepares meals twice a week at Cherry Street Kitchen. Even during the COVID-19 emergency, the kitchen stayed open and Kenny’s crew continued cooking healthy meals. “I don’t think I could’ve done it without them,” Kenny said about working at the kitchen. “When I was doing it at my house, the most I could do was 20 people, friends and family only, and I’m doing far more now.”
Follow Kenny on Instagram at @KennysMeals, on Facebook at kennysmeals, and on the internet at Kennysmeals.com, or around the neighborhood in his clean white mini-van.