Latte Built Gym teams up with local restaurants

A sample of the “Coach D Approved Meal” that is available at Salty’s Bar & Grill in Garapan. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS)

Latte Built Gym Saipan together with selected local restaurants aim for the same cause—to provide the community healthy meals and ultimately create a healthy lifestyle on Saipan. Latte Built Gym owner and health and fitness professional trainer Derek Cutting, or Coach D, came up with the idea.

“The collaboration between my gym and the restaurants is called ‘Loyalty Built X Local Restaurant Collab’ and I started this for two reasons-—To give our community access to a guaranteed healthy meal at most of their favorite restaurants and second, to help promote small businesses on island to work together and collaborate for a good cause especially during the pandemic and difficult economic climate,” he said.

“The restaurants that are part of this collab are The Shack, Everest Kitchen, Caravan of Food, Ina’s Kitchen, Poki Yaki, Naked Fish, Godfather’s Bar & Grill, The Hut, Salty’s Bar & Grill, and Garapan Restaurant and more restaurants will be added soon,” he added.

Cutting said that the meals at each location are all made of clean and low-calorie ingredients and to identify a restaurant that is part of the collaboration, a sign that says “Coach D Approved Meals” is visible upon entry. “High protein and veggies are the majority of the calories in each dish. However, every restaurant present this kind of meal in a dish that they created for this collaboration. Ina’s Kitchen, for example, offers a Latte Built taco, Poki Yaki offers a fresh Poki bowl… Each meal was built with a healthy clean set of ingredients but also stayed in line with the overall theme and culture of each particular restaurant.”

“I didn’t want to get into any particular ‘diet type’ with these meals. That’s why they are called ‘Coach D approved’… I’ve taken all my years as a professional trainer as well as my competitive bodybuilding experience and sort of picked the good qualities from all the ‘fad diets’ but also keeping nutrition well rounded… Each restaurant has at least one set dish, some offer a few options for example Garapan restaurant has three different ‘Latte Built Coach D Approved Meal’ options.” he added.

There is an added feature in this collaboration as anyone who purchase the meals qualifies for the Latte Built Rewards Program. “When someone eats the ‘Latte Built Coach D Approved Meal, he or she will receive a stamp card. When 10 stamps are achieved, this will qualify the holder a special prize that they can claim at Latte Built… We started on Feb. 15 and this is not a promotion as this is a never-ending collaborative program,” Cutting said.

“Prizes will change often but this initial starting prize is one month of free membership at Latte Built,” he added.

For more information, call Latte Built Oleai at (670) 235-2265 or Latte Built Kagman at (670) 488-2265.