OGDEN — Steve Ballard, a longtime Ogden restaurant operator, is on a mission to promote healthy eating among the masses.
Competing with $1.50 Costco hot dogs and McDonald’s value meals can be tough, but he’s trying, offering low-cost Thai curry bowls from an Ogden storefront as a counterpoint to the more ubiquitous fast-food options. Partnering with Salt Lake City-based Giv Communities, he and Giv are thinking even bigger — hoping one day to expand the Ogden Produce Co., as the locale is known, into a multipronged entity centered on healthy food production.
Healthy food “is not equitable,” said Ballard, also the owner of Sonora Grill, a higher-end Mexican restaurant in Ogden. “Generally, it’s the most expensive way to eat, which means that you have to have money to eat healthy, which is not fair, it’s not equitable.”
With that in mind, the Ogden Produce Co., which launched last November at 582 25th Street, offers Thai curry bowls for $3.95, with protein $1 extra. This is a subsidized price point that Ballard figures 90% of Ogdenites can afford. Made with fresh vegetables, his aim is to make healthy eating affordable, and people seem to be taking note. The restaurant initially operated just one day a week, then two, and now, as of this month, it’s open five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday.
“Walk by, come in, eat something healthy,” said Ballard. “It’s dairy-free, it’s gluten-free. It’s raw foods, whole foods, grains. We’re doing things to really focus on health.”
Ballard actually launched Ogden Produce Co. as a hydroponic lettuce-growing operation in late 2021, but Giv Communities, a nonprofit arm of the Giv Group, bought it from him last year. He still runs Ogden Produce Co., including the lettuce-growing operation, and the entity accepts financial donations through the Ogden Food Fund to help subsidize the cost of the curry bowls offered to the public.
Ogden Produce Co. has to compete with the low cost of fast food and processed food, “if we’re going to get people to shift from unhealthy to eat healthy,” Ballard said. The unique restaurant, which also offers salads and sells locally grown produce, seems to be making a mark — between Jan. 1 and mid-June, it had served more than 6,700 meals.
Ballard used to operate the Thai Curry Kitchen, a fast-casual Thai restaurant at the Ogden Produce Co. location, but it closed in 2022, a casualty of the post-COVID-19 labor crunch, among other things. He’s adapted his recipes to the new locale, which offers takeout and sit-down eating.
‘Regionally significant food hub’
While keeping the Ogden Produce Co. restaurant going occupies much of Ballard’s time these days, it’s not his only focus. He still cultivates around 1,000 heads of lettuce a week at the entity’s 400-square-foot hydroponic growing space, a converted shipping container. Ogden Produce recently acquired a second container to expand its operation and provide more space.
We’re calling this block the Food Block.
–Steve Ballard
Giv Development, the development arm of the Giv Group, also owns several properties adjacent to the Ogden Produce Co. site, including a sprawling structure to the west along 25th Street that was part of Weber State College before it moved and became Weber State University. That building, Ballard said, is central in one of the coming envisioned phases of Ogden Produce Co., perhaps housing an indoor farmers market, food stalls, additional hydroponic growing operations and more.
“The Giv team is working super hard to create a regionally significant food hub in Ogden. This will be a special place for food, community and the local economy,” reads the Giv website, which dubs the site Weber Commons. The structure, with four huge pillars, served as the Deseret Gym and a Gold’s Gym after Weber State moved out, but now sits vacant.
Ballard noted that Giv owns other nearby buildings. The entity also plans to take part in the redevelopment of the old U.S. Forest Service building, a historic Art Deco structure nearby at 507 25th Street.
“We’re calling this block the Food Block. The idea is to take this urban block downtown and produce food in this urban city block,” Ballard said.
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