Dream Dinners

Dream Dinners is a franchise where customers come in once a month or so and prepare, but don't cook, all of their dinners for the month in plastic bags. You then take the dinners home and put them in your freezer. Once a week you put some of your frozen dinners in the fridge to defrost and all you have to do is cook the food when dinner-time rolls around. While not a restaurant, we have been using it as an alternative to eating out when life gets busy, so we figured it was close enough. There is one in Kennewick next to Best Buy off Canal, but they have locations in other parts of the country. This is strictly a review of the Kennewick location.

Service (5 stars)
To begin with, ordering through these guys is a piece of cake. All you have to do is log-on to the website (creating an account takes about a minute), choose the meals you'd like to make, select a time to go to a session and then check out. When you go in for your session, the ladies are very helpful and walk you through the procedure for preparing your meals in a sanitary way. All of the ingredients are clearly labeled, and recipes are in plain sight. The only thing that confused me at first was that the recipe cards have the directions for a 3-portion meal on one side and the 6-portion meal on the other. At first I kept forgetting to make sure I had the right portion facing up before I started making the meal. There are a few ladies who follow behind you and wipe up the counters so they're clean for the next person. They also notice if you look lost or unsure and they step right up to help.

Food (4 stars)
The food we've had so far has been really great. There are tons of different things to choose from - marinated meats, casseroles, soups, pastas, you name it. Out of the 5 or 6 different meals we ordered the first month, there was only one that we didn't really care for. The rest were very flavorful and interesting. We saved money as well as calories because we ate out less, and the meals were far better than anything I would have come up with on my own. My biggest complaint is that the meat is slightly lower quality than I would get from the meat I buy at the grocery store. All of the meats are pre-frozen, and I prefer to buy fresh, quality cuts of meat from a mid-range grocery store (like Safeway or Fred Meyer) whenever possible. Although, I can't complain too much because they do a pretty darn good job of making those second-rate meats taste great in the context of the meal. You should be advised that while you can purchase side dishes from Dream Dinners, they do not come with the basic meals. We keep Pillsbury rolls, potatoes and fresh veggies on hand to serve as sides.

Cleanliness/Atmosphere (5 stars)
Alright, so I guess "atmosphere" doesn't apply as much in this case, but if you must know, they have a very pleasant atmosphere that gives you the feeling that your cooking in somebody's kitchen at home. Cleanliness here is fantastic. It's much cleaner and more sanitary than food preparation at most restaurants (as a former fast-food employee I can vouch personally for this). Everybody is required to wash up and wear gloves. You even have to change gloves whenever you switch to a new station. It is also very well supervised, so you don't have people flicking boogers into the garlic, or sneezing their brains out all over the sour cream. Even if that did happen, a nice lady would come behind them to throw out the bad stuff and replace it with something new. I've never used the restroom at Dream Dinners, but the rest of the establishment is probably cleaner and more sanitary than my kitchen at home, so I'm assuming they're top notch. My biggest concern about trying out one of these franchises was sanitation, since you have so many people going through and using the same ingredients and the same utensils, but if you think about it the moms and dads who come through there are much more concerned about sanitation than the doofy 16 year-old that flips your burgers.

Overall Score (4.5 stars)
All in all, if you find yourself eating out a lot, this is a great way to save money and time while eating healthy foods. It's also a great way to mix things up if you find yourself getting bored with the same old recipes.

Price range: $3-$10 a portion
*We try to stick to the cheaper end, so we usually average out to $4 a portion. I think if you ordered mostly from the upper end of the scale it would average $6 or $8 a portion.

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