New Jacksonville restaurant, market offers 100% Keto-friendly meals

A first-of-its-kind bistro and grocery focused on an all-Ketogenic menu including prepared meals ready to go is now open in Jacksonville.

PangeaKeto at 14474 Beach Blvd. at San Pablo Road aims to provide tasty as well as healthy meals, snacks, desserts and other food designed for people following the Ketogenic (Keto) diet and lifestyle, founder Jeff Zucal told the Times-Union.

PangeaKeto is located in a former Taco Bell building adjacent to the Publix-anchored Intracoastal Plaza shopping center in Jacksonville's Intracoastal West area. The building with its drive-thru window most recently was home to the former House of Leaf & Bean, which opened in 2017, then closed and rebranded at Hakka Kitchen but closed permanently in December 2022 after a year.

Within a week, there will be a PangeaKeto app so customers can order their food then use the drive-thru to pick it up without leaving their cars, he said.

Jacksonville is the first PangeaKeto location in Florida. It joins the original in North Canton, Ohio, and a second in Friendswood, Texas, according to its website.

Keto is a very low-carbohydrate diet that involves eating more protein and certain fats. PangeaKeto says it is "the first 100% ketogenic grocery and eatery." It offers more than 250 proprietary products for people following the Keto lifestyle.

Zucal said PangeaKeto also focuses on accommodating people with special dietary needs such as those with diabetes or celiac disease, offering sugar-free and gluten-free foods.

The goal, he said, is for people to lower the amount of prescription drugs they use through the foods they eat, which is the keto lifestyle of natural, low-carb and nutritious foods.

"I like the phrase, 'we're the pharmacy of the future.' I want food to be your medicine," Zucal said.

New eats on the horizon: 25 new restaurants are in the works for the Jacksonville area in 2024. Here's a list

What does PangeaKeto mean?

Zucal said the name PangeaKeto reflects the restaurant's roots in healthy natural foods such as found about 200 million years ago. Pangea was a supercontinent at that time, which once incorporated almost all the landmasses on Earth.

"We like to say that we use [natural] ingredients like you would have found on earth back then," he said.

And ketogenic is a low-carb intake diet. So he said they combined the best of both worlds at PangeaKeto.

PangeaKeto bistro menu

The PangeaKeto menu features Keto-centric comfort foods such as smash burgers, patty melts, pizza, mac & cheese, noodle bowls, quesadillas, sandwiches and wraps.

"At our place, you can come have a burger or a patty melt with fries [made from dough instead of real potatoes] as a side and your blood sugar doesn't go anywhere," said Zucal, noting they also make their own low-carb bread.

A large selection of sugar-free and gluten-free options including snacks, desserts, salad dressings and more, also are available.

"There is no sugar in anything. All our baked goods in-house are gluten-free as well as sugar-free," he said of their desserts such as cookies, cupcakes, parfaits and mini-cheesecakes.

Zucal said they use only avocado oil — a monounsaturated fat — instead of vegetable, soybean or canola oils. Cauliflower replaces rice and spiral zucchini noodles are the pasta.

The Jacksonville menu is similar to the other PangeKeto locations. Top dishes include:

• T-Rex Smashburger ($13): A smashed ground beef patty, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and mayo

• Taco Bowl Cauliflower Rice Bowl ($14): Seasoned ground beef, Cilantro lime cauliflower rice, American cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, Cilantro sour cream salsa and tortilla strips

• Cowboy Mac & Cheese ($14): Barbecue brisket, bell pepper, red onion, mushroom and smoked gouda

• Cheeseburger Pizza ($16): Ground beef, bacon, mozzarella/provolone cheese sauce, red onion, tomato, pickle and a ketchup swirl

• Chicken Alfredo Zasta Bowl ($14): Grilled chicken, alfredo sauce zucchini noodles, broccoli and tomato.

• Smokehouse Melt ($14): Two smash beef patties, American cheese, bacon, caramelized onion, mayo and Pangea Gold sauce

• PK Brisket Quesadilla ($13): Brisket, pepper jack cheese, mushroom and caramelized onion

Listed online at $12.99 each, chilled, whole meals under 10 carbs each include three-cheese lasagna, Texas beef brisket and Mexican carnitas pulled pork.

Other $12.99 to-go chilled meals range from turkey and stuffing to Italian sausage with risotto and smoked gouda chicken, according to the company's online menu.

Best friends and franchise owners

Longtime best friends, Jacqueline Spring Miller and Rosanna Smith — both Keto lifestyle adherents and local entrepreneurs — own the Jacksonville franchise. They also have the franchise rights to the rest of Duval County, Zucal said.

Miller told the Times-Union that she and Smith "have put everything into the bistro."

"I never really wanted to open a restaurant but I feel like this is so important for the community … and I believe in it 10 million percent," Miller said of their goal to provide healthy, nutritious and clean eating opportunities to people.

"Their long-term plans are that they want to have multiple locations," he said. The Beach Boulevard site will serve as the "home base" and training facility for those future stores.

"I wanted to have an environment, too, an experience not just good food," said Miller, noting they ultimately plan to have an outdoor area with picnic benches, corn hole and other family games.

The Jacksonville bistro has been in the works for about a year and a half. Zucal said they chose Jacksonville as the gateway to Florida because of its ongoing growth.

PangeaKeto evolved from Zucal's personal health issues. Eight years ago when he was 45, the veteran restaurant owner weighed 350 pounds. He was diagnosed with diabetes and had a seizure subsequently diagnosed as epilepsy. He also had sleep apnea.

He said the doctors who performed gastric bypass surgery on him also opened his eyes to the problems many people experience resulting from insulin resistance. That led him to begin cooking and eating low-carb, Keto-style foods at home, which evolved into his establishing PangeaKeto.

Putting down roots: 100% plant-based pizzeria opens in Jacksonville, more to come

Miller said initially PangeaKeto to be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday and closed on Monday on Tuesday.

Teresa Stepzinski is the dining reporter for the Times-Union. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @TeresaStepz or reach her via email at [email protected].

If you're a subscriber, thank you. If not, become a subscriber to get the latest dining coverage

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: PangeaKeto opens low-carb, all-Keto bistro, grocery in Jacksonville