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TOTT- Ray Allen's Grown Offers Fresh, Fast Food

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – If you're looking for fresh, organic food that is not made or manufactured, but that is all grown, look no further than NBA star Ray Allen and his wife Shannon's new fast food restaurant in South Miami which is actually called Grown.

The idea to create an all organic, quick-to-order restaurant began a few years ago who when Shannon, mother of five, could not find a fast and healthy food solution while on the road with their middle son who suffers with Type 1 Diabetes.

"When you have a child with a serious medical condition that's insulin dependent who every day is fighting for his life, you don't want to layer in processed food so in the moment I was incredibly frustrated," explained Shannon Allen. So I called Ray and said if no one is going to re-invent fast food, I'm going to do it. And he was 'like go!'"

And in May they did just that.

"Grown is real food, cooked slow for fast people," said Shannon. "It's not gimmicky, it's very simple."

It's simple food that is 100 percent organic. All the fish is wild, not farmed, and everything is served fast food counter service style. But customers must know and learn, it's not fast food prices.

"We have to educate the people in here because they come in and they look at our food, and our prices are higher than most people are used to for fast food," said Ray Allen. "But we hurt ourselves because they realize this is really good food. This is fine dining, with a drive through."

"We make everything on site fresh so our salad dressing we make our marinates soups every day when you order a fresh pressed juice we press it in front of you, there's no smoke and mirrors," Shannon said.

As for Ray, the 6'5" former Miami heat star, he's in the middle of the action at the restaurant daily working the front lines and behind the scenes as well.

"It's a family business. I sweep floors, I clean bathrooms. Anyone that owns any type of business you care about, know you do what you have to, if you want it to be successful," Ray said.

Shannon makes CBS4's Lisa Petrillo a gluten free Mediterranean Wrap, while her Love Greens pressed juice is being made with cucumber, pineapple, celery apple, ginger, spinach, kale and parsley.

"This is a wonderful refreshing green drink and you can taste the vitamins. I'm already feeling stronger!" joked Petrillo.

The Havana Salad has mixed greens with Pico de gallo, black bean salsa, fresh guacamole, wild salmon, with homemade cilantro and a lime vinaigrette dressing.

"There's a difference between wild salmon and farmed salmon and its right here so fresh and undercooked as it should be and seared on outside, and then sitting on fresh bed of lettuce with cilantro dressing is divine," said Petrillo.

The Mediterranean Wrap has marinated onions, tomatoes, organic feta, quinoas, homemade hummus and roasted red peppers in a herb yogurt dressing.

"This is an explosion of flavors and crunch, the cheese, the veggies, the peppers and all in a tiny healthy wrap. It's a salad with a lot of gusto inside," Petrillo said.

Grown is fast, "farm to fork" cuisine right in the heart of South Miami.

Grown is open 7 days a week for breakfast lunch and dinner. For more info: www.grownmiami.com

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