Make It and Take It

Jane Korrow works full time, has two kids to feed and knows what a hassle it is to get a nutritious, home-cooked dinner on the table every night. So when a friend told her about a new place called Let's Dish! in Timonium, Md., that could help her stockpile a dozen homemade dinners in just two hours, she immediately signed up.

"I loved it. It was easy and delicious," she says. So easy that the resident of nearby Cockeysville arranged a second visit a month later.

Companies like Let's Dish! call it "meal assembly." Moms call it a lifesaver. And financial experts call it one of the fastest-growing food trends in the country.

The businesses allow home cooks to gather in a commercial kitchen and assemble prepared raw ingredients, following easy recipes, for up to 12 meals. No meals are cooked at Let's Dish! or its competitors. Instead, customers pack up the entrees they've assembled in freezerproof bags and containers and take them home, to be frozen and then cooked as needed.

The experience is not only convenient -- cooks get to skip all the shopping, chopping and cleanup -- but it's also fun, says Korrow. There's music playing, snacks and drinks to enjoy, and other mothers to talk to.

The concept has proven hugely popular across the country over the past three years, with nearly a dozen chains offering franchises. At least six places, franchised by three chains, are slated to open in the Washington area in the next few months. A Let's Dish! in Bel Air, Md., is scheduled to open today and a Dinner My Way is set to open in Centreville by the end of the month.

Although there are slight variations among chains, all offer the same essential services: Customers sign up online for a two-hour session, choosing either six or 12 entrees, each of which serves four to six people.

When customers show up for their sessions -- with a cooler to take home what they make -- they find the ingredients for each entree already sliced, diced or chopped. At the Let's Dish! in Timonium, for example, there are individual stations for each recipe, with all the ingredients chilled and ready to be measured.

Following the step-by-step recipes, customers assemble each entree (adjusting ingredients to taste), and pack them in freezer bags or disposable aluminum containers. At the end of two hours, customers have enough ready-to-cook dinners to feed a family for weeks.

The cost of 12 assemble-it-yourself entrees is usually just under $200, which averages to less than $2.80 a portion for six servings. (Some companies offer already assembled entrees for slightly more.) For six entrees, the cost is $105 to $120, or about $3 per portion.

The concept got its start three years ago with Dream Dinners, founded by two friends in the Seattle area. Co-founder Stephanie Firchau hosted a girls' night out in a rented catering kitchen where friends could socialize as they prepared a month's worth of meals to be frozen and cooked later. It proved so popular that Firchau and partner Tina Kuna decided to turn it into a business.

Dream Dinners now has about 70 outlets nationally, with five planned by next year in Virginia and Maryland. Last year, company sales reached $6 million. The company has grown so fast, in fact, that it recently hired a former Starbucks executive to become its chief operating officer. It also has inspired dozens of copycat competitors elsewhere in the country, with names such as My Girlfriend's Kitchen, Super Suppers, Dinner by Design, Supper Thyme and Supper Solutions.