Check out these Columbus budget-friendly & healthy lunch spots for restaurant week

These three restaurants hope to change Columbus’ lack of easily accessible vegetarian and healthy food options.

The Food Mill, Country Life, and Build Yo Salad offer meals between $8 and $14 and cater to people interested in eating plant-based, vegan or vegetarian meals. And research shows that plant based-meals are better for human and planetary health.

“There aren’t a lot of vegan or vegetarian restaurants in Columbus and we try to help with that and that is what we’re known for,” said Brittany Espersen, the general manager and chef at The Food Mill.

The Harvard School of Public Health and Brigam and Women’s hospital researchers published a study in 2022 that found plant-based dietary patterns were associated with better environmental health. Additionally, red and processed meat had the highest environmental impact out of all food groups producing the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions and requiring the most irrigation water, cropland, and fertilizer.

The Food Mill

The Food Mill, the four-year-old cafe, indoor market, sells local produce and offers cooking classes. It offers options that caters to different diets and needs that combat health risks like cardiovascular disease.

“We try to offer as many options as we can, and we’ve been like this since we opened in August of 2020,” Espersen said. “We make everything fresh to order.”

“ Half the menu could be altered to have a protein taken out. Like our most popular dish, the Hippie Bowl comes without any protein making it vegan and gluten-free.”

The Hippie Bowl is made up of wild rice, roasted sweet potato, fresh vegetables, and verde dressing for $10

The Food Mill offers a “meatless Monday” special, as well.

The Food Mill participated in Restaurant Week last year and is serving a similar meal this year.

They’re offering a medley bowl of pink-eye peas, collards, silver queen corn, sauteed peppers, cornbread, and vegan butter. (Yes, vegan cornbread and butter). Espersen used oat milk and apple cider vinegar to make a vegan cornbread. It comes with a dessert and drink for $25.

The Food Mill is located at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 38th Street in North Highlands. They do to-go orders but they are not on the delivery apps and close at 3 pm so plan accordingly.

Build Yo Salad

On the other side of town off Macon Road near the Public Library, Build Yo Salad is offering salad bowls and wraps that can be custom-built.

Nadeem Chaudry, co-owner of Build Yo Salad, once weighed in at 270 pounds before he put healthy eating as a top priority. The native Columbisite opened the business in December 2022 with hopes to attract customers who aren’t keen on raw fish from Build Yo Poke, but instead wanted to stick to the greens.

“People want to eat healthy, but there are not many options here,” he said. “But, if you give them options, of course, they will eat healthier.”

Chaudry said his restaurant uses organic kale, spinach and romaine and offers deep-fried tofu and falafel as protein options for people who don’t eat any animal proteins. That type of salad or wrap comes to about $9, he said.

If you add meat, Build Yo Salad touts their Halal meat as a healthier option, that bowl could go up to $14.

“All of our meat is Halal, not processed, no preservatives, non-GMO,” Chaudry said.

His co-owner, Hati Budiyono, and owner of Build Yo Poke across town makes all of the dressings from scratch and uses some to dress the salmon or chicken.

While they are not participating in restaurant week, Build Yo Salad is open every day from 11am-9pm, except Sunday 11am-8pm. They are on Doordash for delivery.

Country Life

Down where Macon becomes Wyntonn Road, across from the Aflac Headquarters, tucked off Wyntonn Road on Eberhart Avenue, sits Country Life, Columbus’ only all-vegan lunch buffet and restaurant. Next month they are celebrating their 55th year.

Walking into Country Life can feel a bit like walking into the inside of a granola bar. It’s part indoor farm where you can by grains in bulk, and part health-food store, and a bonus buffet in the back.

Owned by the Uchee Pines Institute in Seale, Alabama, known for holistic health and wellness and a Seventh Day Adventist group, the store and restaurant hopes to mimic what “God gave us”, according to Jay Thomas, the Manager at Country Life.

“Fruits, nuts, and seeds were given, until the fall of Adam and Eve God gave us grains,” Thomas said. “The body is a temple of God and you are what you eat.”

The lunch offered on Monday was an Eggplant spaghetti, cabbage, and bread roll, for $7.99. Plus you have access to a salad bar with 58 choices.

“And it really does fill you up,” Thomas insisted. “More people come for our lunch buffet than our store.”

The food at the buffet and salad bar is delivered by Tumbleweed, a distributor from Atlanta.

In the front of the store there are crates of produce for sale that come from Uchee Pines farm, Thomas said.

Thomas is proud of their “reasonable prices” for the lunch buffet.

“Just two months ago we raised it from $7.50 to $8 dollars, before that it was $6.99 in January 2021,” he said.

Thomas said all walks of life are welcome and outside of Seventh Day Adventist’s mission, he encourages a plant-based meal because the best way to be healthy is to do it with your fork and spoon.

Seventh Day Adventist sabbath is sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night and Country Life closes on those days. They are open from 10am to 5pm and the buffet can be taken to-go but they are not on the delivery apps.

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