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Popular restaurant opening soon in Downtown Toledo with fresh twist

They are not only bringing their unique restaurant downtown, but also bringing with it a new fresh idea
(Source: WTOL)
(Source: WTOL)

TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - A popular restaurant is making its way downtown in just days. At the corner of Jefferson and Summit, a spot that sat empty for decades, will be home to the fourth Balance Pan-Asian Grille.

They are not only bringing their unique restaurant, but also bringing with it a new fresh idea

WTOL 11 got a sneak peek inside Downtown Toledo's newest restaurant Balance Pan-Asian Grille Friday. Its owners are both University of Toledo graduates and are excited to expand into the heart of the Glass City.

"It means everything to us," said Prakash Karamchandani, co-owner of Balance. "Being able to build kind of in the outer loop of the city and then be able to come in right when everything is taking off downtown is, it's awesome."

Balance will open to the public May 10th and will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. You can order in store or off their free app, not to mention they cater too.

You can check out their other locations and menu here.

"I've been a fan of balance for a while," said Jordan Valdiviez, a Balance customer. "It's always fresh, it's always healthy and it always has a really cool vibe when you walk in. This store has one of the coolest vibes, especially being downtown."

In addition to their restaurant, known for their build-a-bowls and tacos with fresh vegetables, they are working on creating "Balance Farms" a vertical garden indoors just down the hall from their new downtown location.

"We can not only grow unique items from a culinary perspective we can grow items that are produced locally in an organic fashion year-round, which is really difficult to do in Ohio's climate," said Prakash Karamchandani. "So, this is pretty cool."

Between their four locations, Balance uses hundreds of pounds of fresh produce a day. Nearly 70 percent of what comes from their vertical farm once it's operational will be used for their stores while 30 percent will be sold to others in our area.

"There is obviously a lot of capital expenditure involved in the project," explained Karamchandani. "But really where we save money is on logistic costs and perishability because we're only harvesting what we need when we are actually using it in the restaurant."

Balance Pan-Asian Grille's owners have completed engineering on the vertical farm and are beginning construction now with hopes of being operational in a year.

They expect to grow fruiting vegetables, leafy greens, peppers, living herbs and micro greens. Customers think it's a great idea.

"I feel like the fact that the food is local will make people feel like wow this is a part of my home this is something that is contributing back to the place we live," said Alex Lim, a Balance customer.

In the future Balance hopes to partner with Imagination Station to further explain controlled environment agriculture, but until it's ready they will be serving their fresh Asian inspired dishes beginning May 10th.

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