Meet Kasia Bednarz: An Entrepreneur Redefining Healthy With Her Growing Food Brand

Kasia Bednarz is the founder of FARE, a quickly growing Chicago restaurant chain that provides seasonal fast food for customers seeking convenient and healthy food options. FARE has been growing for well over a decade since its launch, despite operating in an industry where revenue is hard to come by, and labor costs alone have jumped by 35% in the last five years alone.

FARE has ten locations in and around Chicago, with plans to continue scaling from there. A notable part of the FARE story is how Bednarz was able to find and deploy a solution that the most ambitious industry titans have, thus far, failed to accomplish: a scalable model for health-focused fast food.

Founding FARE From a Food Hall

Back in 2010, Bednarz was working in a restaurant in Chicago. Bednarz, along with a colleague, shared a love of food and used that as a connection point, talking through everything from seasonal veggies to a shared passion for dinner parties where the food could truly be the focus.

One thing that came to the fore was Bednarz’s distaste for the extremes of the modern food industry. She said she noticed most successful establishments seemed to focus on one of two things: a highly restrictive health-focused approach or junky fast food (the kind that most Americans end up resorting to when they can’t maintain a stricter, joyless diet).

Her response was to create a business model that allowed speed and convenience to overlap with genuinely healthy meals. The idea became FARE, a health-focused fast food restaurant model.

The pressure test came in a local downtown food hall, and when the concept gained repeat customers, it began expanding. The menu grew as Bednarz refined the concept, and before long, it was time to open more locations. Since 2018, FARE expanded to ten spots across the Windy City, from Logan Square to Oak Park, and beyond.

While the growth was as unexpected as it was explosive, Bednarz remained committed to maintaining the straight and narrow as it grew. She refused to let success and scaling overwrite her desire to keep her focus on both the enjoyment and healthy nature of the food. To keep on track, she put in place a set of standards that helped avoid wandering from their formula: simple ingredients, a wide variety of flavors, and food prepared for customers on the go.

Why FARE? The Standards That Built a Health Fast Food Empire.

FARE was built on a unique take on healthy eating with a relatively simple idea: provide fast food that was real food. Every location serves fresh, seasonal food as fast as possible. The menu routinely features meals that lean on flavor or use interesting, nutrition forward ingredients.

Bednarz’s efforts to stay true to her brand doesn’t stop at marketing slogans. It is baked into the FARE menu and culture. The FARE website summarizes its food with three words: fresh, flavorful and crave-worthy. The purpose is to maintain that tension between healthy and tasty. To execute on this, Bednarz established five core standards. These are rules that the restaurant chain has remained firmly committed to.

• Full ingredient transparency (You should always know what’s in your food.)
• Satisfying portions (FARE doesn’t offer tiny meals that leave you thinking about making a follow-up trip to McDonald’s.
• No refined sugars in the food FARE makes (They believe in treats too, just made with natural sweeteners and without the guilt.)
• No seed oils (No seed oils involved. Just olive oil.)
• Made from scratch daily (No pre-chopped vegetables or bagged sauces here, as everything is made fresh each day in every FARE kitchen.)

The way Bednarz brought this vision to life was just as important as the food itself. Instead of the traditional fast-food model where everything disappears into a hidden back kitchen, FARE was designed to feel open, vibrant, and alive. Guests move through a cafeteria-style line surrounded by colorful roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, proteins coming straight from the oven, and sauces being made in real time. The experience is intentionally visual. You see the freshness, smell the food cooking, and watch your meal come together right in front of you.

Growing FARE: How to Successfully Expand a Health Fast Food Chain

After the initial launch, it quickly became clear to Bednarz that FARE was resonating in a much bigger way than expected. Customers weren’t just coming for “healthy food.” They were returning for meals that felt vibrant, comforting, and genuinely homemade in a category dominated by processed shortcuts.

As demand grew, Bednarz focused on building the systems and standards needed to scale without compromising the experience. Several more Chicago locations followed before FARE expanded beyond city limits. This was due to its Oak Park location near Austin Gardens in late 2025. Two additional locations are set to open next month in Old Town and Lakeview.

One of the biggest challenges as the company grew was maintaining food that felt exciting and fresh across multiple locations in a region with dramatic seasonal changes. But for Bednarz, seasonality was never a marketing strategy added later. Rather, it had always been core to how FARE cooked.

FARE operates around four major seasonal menu transitions each year. This allows the restaurants to align with produce at its peak while creating variety and anticipation for guests. That rotating menu is balanced with a handful of staples customers consistently return for. These include FARE’s green goddess slaw, sweet potatoes, and mac and cheese. The result is a menu that feels both dependable and constantly evolving as the company continues to grow.

The Future of FARE

Bednarz seems to have picked the right time to launch a fast food joint in a restaurant industry where health and convenience were a tough duality to achieve. The fact that FARE caters to dietary choices like low-sugar, gluten-free and no-seed oils is also a big win. As these and similar diet-related trends continue to gain traction in America, FARE is set to maintain its trajectory as a fast-growing, healthy yet enjoyable eating experience, and not just in Chicago at this point.

As part of FARE’s 2026 expansion plan, the chain will go beyond its eight existing Chicago locations. This will include a planned breakthrough expansion into North Carolina. If the expansion is successful, it could position FARE to continue growing beyond the Chicago market and explore larger franchise opportunities in additional regions.