What’s a box lunch, you ask?

Instead of the brown bag lunches of the past, box lunches are what you’d get if you ordered takeout from any hip, local restaurant and brought it back to work. They’re individually packaged lunches in sustainable, compostable or recyclable boxes. A box lunch could include a sandwich with a bag of chips, a hearty salad with protein on top and a soup and sandwich combination, for example.

Box lunches are:

• Delicious
• Healthy
• Made locally
• Packed with variety
• Easy and quick to eat
• Made to travel well
• Perfect for groups

Here are our top box lunch ideas (and tips on how to order them into your office).

Foodee’s top box lunch ideas

All-you-can-eat box lunch

This is your standard, well-balanced lunch box right here: sandwich, side salad, cookie and chips. It’s the kind of lunch your mom made for you in school, but even better because it was made by a chef at a local restaurant. It’s packed with variety and is highly individual.

Let’s take Texas French Bread in Austin, for example. Their boxed lunches include any number of delicious homemade sandwiches with a mixed green salad with lemon vinaigrette, a cookie and house-made chips and salsa. What more could you want? Try the vegetarian on ciabatta or the smoked ham and swiss on amber rye.

Or, if you’re located in Denver, check out Vert Kitchen’s boxed lunches. They serve up so many signature sandwiches on fresh, locally-baked baguettes, plus they add a seasonal side salad, natural chips and a homemade cookie. Perfect! Try their curry chicken salad lunch box with currants, coconut milk, apples, salad greens and a tarragon cashew pesto.

Pie-n-side box lunch

We may still be on a pie kick since celebrating international Pi Day, but there’s nothing quite like an individual, baked savory pie with a side salad.

Take Panbury’s Double Crust Pies from Atlanta, for instance. This delicious local restaurant worked with Foodee to create the best box lunch idea ever: Pie-n-side box. You choose the pie and you choose the salad. We’re talking cottage pie, southern breakfast, spinach and feta, country chicken, steak and stout, chicken and mushroom pie among so many others. Pair that with a kale caesar salad or Greek salad and you have the best Monday (or Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) lunch ever.

Chips and Sammy boxed lunch

Just looking for a good old fashioned sandwich with a salty little treat? Check out what Boulder Colorado’s Organic Sandwich Co. is serving up with Foodee. They have a classic ham and cheese with a twist: cured ham, gruyere, red onion, romaine and honey mustard on an insanely yummy pretzel loaf with a side of chips. Yes, please.

Box salads with protein

Avoid all the unnecessary carbs but have a well-balanced, hearty and healthy lunch with a boxed salad. These beautiful salads often still come with a few slices of baguette or freshly made roll—plus an extra side like fruit or a cookie—but you don’t miss out on your greens.

Take Denver’s MAD Greens individual salads, for example. We’re drooling over the sheer variety of greens, dressings, veggies and proteins. Definitely try the Don Quixote salad with creamy ginger dressing, mixed greens, southwestern chicken, avocado, mango, roasted corn and jack cheese.

Or, for you Austin foodies, check out The Vanilla Orchid’s chef salad boxed lunch that comes with kettle chips, a side salad and your choice of two proteins on top of a deliciously classic chef salad. Talk about a well-balanced meal.

How to find box lunches in your city

We’ve partnered with your city’s best local restaurants to create easy-to-order (and easy-to-eat) boxed lunches. They come in all shapes and sizes and have something for everyone on your team.

To find out which restaurants in your city offer box lunches through Foodee, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.food.ee. Make sure you’ve signed up and are logged in. If you haven’t created an account yet, watch this quick video on how to create an account.
2. Hover over CITIES in the top left corner and select your city.
3. We’ve handpicked the best local restaurants in your city—and here they are! But let’s refine our search to find box lunches.
4. Select the red DIETARY & CUISINE FILTERS.
5. In the FILTER BY FEATURE section of the drop-down filters, select BOXED LUNCH. You can also filter based on diet, feature, or cuisine.
6. Scroll down to view all of the Foodee restaurants in your city that have a boxed lunch option.

Learn more about how to order with Foodee in our super easy, step-by-step blog post.