What a Great Idea for a Restaurant! TGD

Came across this story in Journal - News this morning and it really caught my eye. They opened a new restaurant, TGD, in neighboring town of Oxford, Ohio. (Home of Miami University). Finally a fast food restaurant that you can enjoy and healthy food at the same time! Turkey and all the Thanksgiving trimmings served year around. Check out their website, I hope they expand to West Chester real soon!

Thanksgiving Dinner 365

TGD's mission is to serve real home cooked food in a fast casual setting while maintaining amazing taste and inexpensive prices so that everyone can enjoy our food. Of course TGD serves slow roasted turkey along with all of the fixings from mashed potatoes to green beans, and even homemade mac and cheese. But there is much more to TGD's menu including a wide variety of other home cooked choices such as tender roast beef, baked chicken, honey glazed ham and our signature Turkey Nuggets™. In addition to hot options we also have made to order wraps and salads using only the freshest veggies, meats and sauces.

All of this is unlike most fast food chains because we actually prepare everything fresh right in our own kitchen each and every day. The other guys use poor quality frozen ingredients that are prepared days or even weeks in advance. Our high quality food is displayed fresh and hot in a steam table so it can be served to you immediately, allowing you to get your food with no wait.

Not only is our home cooked food served fast but it is of great value. Two adults can easily be filled up for around 14 bucks (including a drink fountain drink or iced tea).

The TGD concept originated at 4am after a long black jack session at the Rio in Las Vegas when co-founder Ryan Napier asked co-founder Nino Natale, "How good does a burger sound?" Nino looked back at him and replied "Not bad, but, how cool would it be if we could get Thanksgiving dinner right now in the same time it took to get a burger?"

Ryan's eyes lit up and the two went on discussing how great each component of Thanksgiving dinner was. Ultimately the pair began wondering why a meal that so many people loved was only eaten once or twice a year. From that moment on it was their mission to deliver the beloved meal to the public at a great price, 365 days a year, in a fast food setting, while still maintaining highest quality of food possible.

The partners originally were running with the name "Thanksgiving Dinner." While this describes the restaurant well it is a bit wordy and not as catchy as they wanted. For weeks while working on the concept they attempted to think of a better name but nothing seemed to be right. Finally one night while working Nino exclaimed "Ry I got it, let's call it TGD!"

Ryan wasn't sure exactly what he meant, so Nino explained that it simply stood for "Thanks Giving Dinner." Ryan then replied "You know Thanksgiving is one word right?" Nino then said that he had always thought that it was two words. After laughing for a few minutes and thinking about it the partners agreed that they liked the name because the name was unique, simple, and had a great story behind it.

The first thing our founders agreed on when they decided to move forward with their idea was that every plate of food they served would be of the highest quality possible. They wanted the food in their restaurants to taste just like a home cooked Thanksgiving feast and they wanted to achieve this while still serving the food fast and at a great price.

They proceeded to go to several food distributors and each time the first thing that they said to them is exactly what they originally agreed on…that they needed the highest quality products that the distributor had to offer. Each time the food distributor took the partners list and pulled some samples of all of their highest quality products they could find.

After selecting the food company the partners and the food distributor's executive chef painstakingly went over each recipe to make sure all of the highest quality ingredients were used and used correctly. All of this work and commitment to high quality has resulted in TGD having a real home cooked taste in each and every bite while still being served fast and at a great price so everyone can enjoy it.

http://tgd365.com/index.html