Hi! I’m actually in the process of figuring out how to open a keto restaurant. My mother and I love baking and cooking. I used to own my own cake business before my second child. We’ve been experimenting with recipes and trying to pick out favorites. We’re going to start with presenting samples at saturday markets and such, then a smaller menu at first to gauge the community response. Hoping it goes well! Looking at the southwest washington area, keto is pretty big in the metro area and our space would be almost directly off the freeway. Risky and a bit uncharted territory but I think it’d have the potential to take off. I typed in “keto restaurants” and thousands of results for “keto options” popped up. People want it and it would be cool to be the first! Wish us luck!
100% keto restaurants—will the future see them?
Welcome to the forum, Patricia =).
That is awesome, I wish you all the best in doing this. I hope that you will be a big success!
Thank you!! We’re sure hoping it goes off without a hitch.
Very cool idea and it is done out there but key factor is location location location obviously 
would never float out here where I am in the boonies and Southern style food ain’t gonna die easily just yet.
I think it can ‘be a thing’ but as mentioned in the thread, and I haven’t read it all, you can get a keto meal anywhere in most restaurants. Just ask. Most places will easily accommodate you and another poster said order a steak and broccoli
I am carnivore. Even I manipulate restaurants to suit me. They do it.
So if you got the location and population, yea it sounds like a fun project to tackle if your heart is in it…but that old thing comes to mind, SO MANY restaurants never make it. Scary on that one for me.
but yea, cool general idea and all. I would love to see the world change big time. Best I can do is walk thru what IS out there and make the restaurant cater to me and suit me.
In HOUSTON we have a couple of keto-friendly restaurants. Caroline’s Kitchen which is North of Houston has many keto options and is a Bakery too. In the inner loop, there is Ruggles Black which has Paleo and Keto options. I love Ruggles !!!
I am quite sure there will be some restaurants, why not? Not only keto is popular at other parts of the planet (surely not here though there are Hungarian ketoers of course) but keto food is great and people on a carbier diet can enjoy it. Some people refuse to eat their food without a mountain of carbs (and they even might have physical problems with that) but many people can enjoy some meat+vegetables dish.
Maybe it would be better, way more popular if it would provide great desserts and folks could go there only for that if they wanted…?
But if it’s still too early, I can imagine some restaurant where a limited range of carby side dishes are available but everything else is keto friendly (not just a restaurant with keto options but an almost keto one. not 100% but close). It would put off the ketoers who doesn’t even like to see carby food because they trigger them but I wouldn’t have such problems and I could go with my SO (the type who simply can’t eat without a ton of carbs unless it’s dessert. my cheesy sesame muffin is the only exception). If the restaurant would be here and not over the ocean and I could afford it…
I am just thinking without being too deep, I know nothing about making a restaurant successful…
But if there are raw vegan cafes, why not keto restaurants with completely normal and tasty food? I know it would be unsuccessful here and many other places where carbs are super important but if there are a lot of people, the country isn’t very poor, keto and meat is popular, I imagine it has a chance now or a bit later. Probably even now if one is a genius and does everything right. But I really know nothing about such adult things like business and every country is different anyway and things are changing. It’s complicated.
I wish luck for everyone who tries such a thing!
Even a cafe or confectionary (I never figured out what the right English world for places where people eat cakes at tables) would be nice, we have sugar free places around here, some cakes are paleo and even those are horribly carby. I am fine with that as I make my own cakes and if I very rarely go to such a place with the girls, I just drink water. But it surely would be nice for others. People will continue to eat cakes now and then, it’s obvious, I would like if they had more options. I know how bad it is to have barely none. Eating at some restaurants as a vegetarian was impossible and I didn’t even do low-carb or low-fat then but yep, I had my own taste and didn’t accept just anything (but sometimes the only vegetarian option was a tiny amount of grilled vegetables. I wondered about people who think a vegetarian doesn’t need food or that there is no other food, just meat and vegetables). A ketoer, especially with special restrictions surely faces problems at many restaurants. I know there are options and better restaurants but still, a keto restaurant would be better. The absolutely best and dreamlike keto restaurant would have multiple options for people with a more restricted diet. I don’t think it’s extremely hard if one avoids the attitude that almost everything must be added to almost everything. Some separation of food groups would be nice (I like to avoid lactose but they tend to be in various things. I guess. I make my own food since I cut too many food groups from my diet and I am more flexible at restaurants anyway. but not too much, I don’t buy food I don’t really like). And options for the basically same dish if it’s easy to add in the end.
Of course I got carried away again… Not like I have a chance to see a keto restaurant in the near future…
A couple thoughts:
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Meal prep services and meal kit services are already doing this, because their cost structure and business model is different from restaurants. They can match all kinds of specialized diets - Whole30, Paleo, keto, etc. - in ways that restaurants might find harder to do.
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Any “whole, natural foods” restaurant could offer a keto menu with low/no starches or sugars, high fat, no seed oils. They probably all have the ingredients in the kitchen already.