San Diego, CA (RestaurantNews.com) Luna Grill, a well-known fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant featuring an all-fresh, high-quality, made-to-order Mediterranean menu, has just signed a lease in Lake Forrest, Calif, marking the quickly growing chain’s expansion into Orange County. The restaurant will open in late February 2012, followed by another Orange County Luna Grill opening at Irvine Spectrum Center in late May 2012.
The 2,408-square-foot restaurant in Lake Forrest will seat 64 inside and the 900-square-foot patio will seat 56. Departing from the usual Luna Grill design, the dining area is being improved with a community table that seats 14 and a waiting area for those ordering take-out. Additionally, the restaurant will feature full-height windows surrounding the dining area.
Fresh and healthy menu items are continually added to Luna Grill’s already expansive menu and now the restaurant is offering a larger variety of draft-beer options at its Point Loma – Liberty Station restaurant. Luna Grill will also offer them at the two new Orange County restaurants when they open. The chain also features catering for groups of all sizes, as well as a Luna Rewards member incentive program through all of its locations.
Luna Grill, founded in 2005, has been rapidly expanding throughout San Diego County with six locations encompassing the majority of the county.
“Each of the communities where we have a restaurant has been very supportive of our brand and they fully embrace our concept,” says Sean Pourteymour, CEO of Luna Grill. “They tell everyone about us and we know it’s because of our customers that our growth is possible. We’re so thankful.”
Both of the Orange County restaurants are being designed by Taj Design, which also designed the six Luna Grill restaurants in San Diego County. Although the Lake Forrest Luna Grill will employ approximately 20 when it opens, more jobs than that are already being created — from the lease signing, to hiring the architects, designers, contractors and many more team players — to make the restaurant come to life.
Luna Grill was founded six years ago when Pourteymour’s wife, Maria, became concerned that the couple’s children weren’t getting healthy nutrition when they ate out. When she began creating the menu for Luna Grill, Maria wanted to provide wholesome, natural, made-to-order food that is so healthy and convenient, she would feel confident enough to feed it to her own children every day. Now the restaurant’s Chief Cuisine Officer, Maria develops every menu addition, is involved in selecting all spices, produce, hormone-free meats and works closely with the staff to ensure quality controls across the Luna Grill brand.
In fact, Luna Grill doesn’t prepare its food in advance. All food is cooked when customers order it so that they can be assured it’s fresh.
Luna Grill is owned by Premier Food Concepts, LLC., which has headquarters in San Diego. Other Luna Grill locations throughout San Diego County include Carmel Valley, Carlsbad, EastLake, Hillcrest, Mission Valley, and Point Loma – Liberty Station. For more information about Luna Grill, visit www.lunagrill.com or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thelunagrillrestaurant and follow us on Twitter @LunaGrillSD.
