Find a Healthy Lunch at Duke Integrative Café

Before executive chef Cate Smith and her team go home for the day, they roast whole chickens so the meat will be pick-apart tender by morning. They chop vegetables for vegan and gluten-free soups, and they mix homemade salad dressings. The Duke Integrative Café, which opened last fall, has become a lunch destination for staff and faculty working on the Duke Center for Living Campus and beyond. “We are looking at your health, and the fuel that you put in your body counts,” said Smith, executive chef for the Duke Integrative Café and Duke Diet and Fitness Center. “The café is a really good way to grab lunch fairly fast.”The café is open weekdays from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Duke Integrative Medicine, 3475 Erwin Road on Duke’s Center for Living Campus. Parking is free. Certain menu items remain constant, such as a variety of soups, sandwiches, quiches and salads with vegan and gluten-free options. Specials and other menu announcements can be found on the Duke Integrative Café’s Facebook page. In the morning, the café offers granola made fresh in house, yogurt, oatmeal, an egg white sandwich, scones and muffins. Lunch items are available around 11 a.m. and usually priced between $4 and $7. A recent special: Shrimp and grits casserole for $6.Smith said her favorites on the menu are the turkey and cranberry sandwich with Havarti cheese as well as a rotisserie chicken sandwich with herb mayo, avocado and Swiss cheese. Sixty-five percent of the ingredients she uses are local, such as eggs from Latta’s Family Farms in Hillsborough and cheese from Chapel Hill Creamery. Susan Arnold, a program specialist with Duke Integrative Medicine, stops by the café at least three times a week. The café staff knows her and her lunch choices by now:  The chicken salad sandwich with a lemon bar for dessert.When the sandwich isn’t on the menu, the staff will make it for her anyway if they have the ingredients. “It’s nice to have an option here and knowing you’re getting something fresh, something that’s healthy and always good,” Arnold said. “It’s scrumptious.”