Local Farm-to-Table Restaurant Continues Thriving Years After Opening

Photo provided by Carmella Coq’mard.
Photo provided by Carmella Coq’mard.

Local Farm-to-Table Restaurant Continues Thriving Years After Opening 

By Tia Carol Jones

For Carmell Coq’mard, eating healthy is a way of life. She saw the benefits of eating healthy and the way it changed her life and wanted to share her knowledge and her food with the Woodlawn community. She opened Let’s Eat to Live at 621 E. 67th St. in Sept. 2022.

Four years in, Coqmard said it is going well with Let’s Eat to Live now. She did acknowledge that it had been a difficult three years, because there was a mindset that clean, healthy food, didn’t have any flavor. She said it took a while to convince people that clean, healthy eating, with no saturated fats, non-GMO, Halal, wild caught fish, would still have just as much flavor as any other dishes people were eating from other restaurants.

“Everything that we use for the restaurant is for the purpose of the health of our customers,” she said.

Coq’mard said that it has been a heavy lift to get people to come and try the food. She had a day where she had customers come and try the food for free, with a tasting. She has made it her mission to get people to understand that you can eat healthy and don’t have to lose the flavor.

She said she really made it her mission to bring healthy food to the community after COVID-19 and seeing people get the virus because of their comorbidities, a lot of which, she said, could have been prevented with eating healthy. She said once people change their diets their health improves. Let’s Eat to Live is Coq-mard’s second restaurant, the first was Let’s Eat to Live @The Foodies Spot, located at 7350 S. Stony Island.

Coq’mard said that with her farm-to-table, Halal food, she is consciously making the decision to feed her customers food that she knows is good and good for them. She also has a meal plan where customers can get six meals a week. She said a lot of her meal plan customers are senior citizens or people who have diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer. She said regulating what goes into their bodies has been working for them.

“The people who come here really want to get their health right,” she said.

In addition to Let’s Eat to Live, there is also a concerted effort to make the entire block of East 67th Street a healthy hub. Coq’mard wants to expand the offerings at Salaam Community Wellness Center, located at 613 E. 67th St, to include holistic healing, along with primary care. She is looking for and working toward getting funding to make that expansion happen. She said that much of the illnesses that present within the Black community, there is a food or herb that exists that can help get people back on track with regards to their health.

Coq’mard said the people who come to the restaurant are surprised that the dishes on the menu are flavorful and don’t leave them feeling heavy afterwards. She said it is getting a little easier to educate people in the community about the food.

She has used social media to invite people to come and try the food. She said the people who try the food love it. She said one of the most popular items is the Halal lamb chops, and the beet juice is still very popular among the patrons. People have also been requesting the pineapple ginger drink.

Let’s Eat to Live also has a bakery where they make fresh bread weekly. The on-site farm next to the restaurant is where most of the vegetables are sourced for the dishes, which is something Coq’mard is very proud of. They also serve a breakfast buffet from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from noon to 8 p.m. they serve lunch and dinner. Let’s Eat to Live is open from Tuesday through Sunday. For more information about Let’s Eat to Live, call 773-966-6549, or visit www.letseattoliverestaurant.com.


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