Good Neighbor Podcast: TN-WNC-SWVA

EP# 334: From Ohio to Knoxville: How a Family Built Five Clean Eatz Cafes and a Community Around Better Food

• Skip Mauney & Zach Sattler • Episode 334

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A surprise meal delivered to a hospital room changed everything for our guest, Zach Sattler. What began as a favor from the Clean Eatz founders became the spark that led his family to sell nearly everything, move to Knoxville, and build five thriving cafés dedicated to clean eating that actually tastes good. This is a story about risk, community, and the simple power of portion control.

We walk through Zach’s path from Ohio to Wilmington—where he first discovered Clean Eatz at a grand opening—then to Knoxville, where his family went all-in on a vision they believed could serve their neighbors. Zach explains how Clean Eatz balances whole ingredients with smart portions, avoids the heavy oils and hidden sodium that sneak into everyday meals, and proves you don’t need to live on chicken, rice, and broccoli to eat well. You’ll hear how a family structure—Zach on sales and marketing, his best friend in operations, and his sister managing a flagship location—keeps service personal and standards high across Maryville, Farragut, Bearden, Chattanooga, and Asheville.

Beyond the menu, we talk about real sacrifice: selling the house, the boat, and the cars; cramming into a three-bedroom apartment with two labs; and working long hours to open the first store in 2017. That grit shaped a culture that still shows up in every café experience—hot meals you can enjoy on-site, smoothies and snacks that fit your day, and meal plans that make healthy eating practical instead of punishing. Zach also shares life outside work—boating on Knoxville’s lakes, Smokies hikes, and the tug-of-war between Vols fandom and Ohio State roots—because local business is personal, and that’s the point.

If you’re near Knoxville or the surrounding cities, swing by a Clean Eatz café, say hello, and try a balanced meal that proves flavor and health can coexist. Want updates or help planning your week? Follow the local pages on Facebook and Instagram or visit cleaneatz.com. If this story resonates, tap follow, share it with a friend who loves good food, and leave a quick review to help more neighbors find the show.

SPEAKER_01:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Marty.

SPEAKER_02:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. So I am very excited today to have a very special guest in the studio with us for the first time. Um, and I'm sure you'll be just as excited as I am to learn all about them and what they do. Because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Mr. Zach Saddler, who is Saddler, which is uh the marketing and sales director with Clean Eats. Welcome to the show. Glad to have you. Hope you're doing well today.

SPEAKER_00:

Very appreciate, very excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, cool. Well, like I said, I'm really excited, and I'm sure our listeners and viewers are as well to hear learn all about you and what you do. So if you don't mind, why don't you kick us off by telling us about Clean Eats?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. So uh CleanEats is we're a franchise. Uh the company originally started in Wilmington, North Carolina. It's still family-owned to this day. I think we're approaching around 100 franchises as a company. Um, but our group here, um, so we are family owned. My parents own a group of five franchises. We have three here in the greater Knoxville area, uh, Merivale, Tennessee, uh Farragut, and Beardon. And then we also have Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina. So those are our five stores. Um, like I said, my family kind of owns and operates these five. Uh, I do sales and marketing. Uh, my best friend for the past 10, 12 years, he is our operations director. Uh, my little sister is our leading general manager of our busiest store. So you can say we're full fully family operation around here, but it makes it really fun with what we do, and we're just blessed for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Definitely a family, family affair, it sounds like absolutely for sure. Well, and now interesting. Uh let's talk about your journey. How did you how did you get started in this business?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's kind of a crazy story. So I'm born and raised in Ohio originally, that's where my family's from. And uh, I was going to college doing the whole thing, working, and I just always like wanted to get out of there. I was like, the winters aren't for me. I want to be a go to the beach or do something. So I had kind of like set my sights on Wilmington, North Carolina for the college at UNCW down there, um, transferring, but also just the way of life in the small beach town, but kind of just checked all the boxes for me. So it's going to school, um, end up having an opportunity to get promoted. I was working for GNC at the time. So I decided to drop out of college. I was like, I'm just gonna save as much money as I can for six months and then just like go after this. So kind of fast-forwarding, that transpires. I moved to Wilmington. Um, I started working a couple odds and ends jobs down there. Um, and after about a year-ish, year and a half, probably being there, I was working for a company called Cellu Corps, doing like sports nutrition supplementation demos all across this uh the coastal area and military bases. And I got invited to come out to a clean eats grand opening event in Fayetteville, North Carolina. So I go and to the event, great time, great people, kind of see the first time of seeing like a cafe, not even knowing this whole time. The gym I was going to in Wilmington had the very first original clean eats, was like literally across the street. So I come back, I met the owners that day, and I kind of told them, like, yeah, we're in Wilmington, come on and see us. So I literally go to the gym that next like Monday or Tuesday, go across the street, grab lunch after, and was still a menu item to this day. It's called the Arnold rat. Um, it's a big burrito rat, delicious. That was the first thing I got. So I sat down there and it was just like really cool at the time. And this is a 1200 square foot uh cafe, so they're just getting started. Um, so it kind of just kept in touch. We they invited me to all the future openings of their franchises, and then I started working for them. Um, because I was at this other job full-time, and then on the weekends and stuff like that, I pick up shifts. And meanwhile, my family's still back in Ohio, and my dad was operating a Carabas uh Italian grill and top three in the company. And so he was foolish, but they always my family's talked about like wanting to do their own thing someday, um, and then kind of had their own personal story developing and it just kind of felt like we're so I kind of like pitched this to my game. I'm like, hey, they're franchising these businesses, this place, new place I'm working. Like, I'd love guys come down and see it and check it out. I was like seeing a lot of success really quick from these franchises. So they're opening up in almost like over six months to a year, you see people buying new homes and like opening another store. So it's like you can see very evidently they have something that's a golden ticket here. So I pitched in my dad's like, okay, dude, whatever you say. He's like, I've been in the restaurant manager for 25 years. He's like, my mom was interested, at least she was into marathons and stuff. So me and her were kind of the health and fitness nuts of the house. So she came down, kind of showed her the idea, uh, what the business was and stuff, and took it back fast forward, probably about six to eight months. Uh, we had a family incident happen, and I had to fly back home to Ohio and I was working for Clean's time. I called the owners and then let them know I said, Hey, I'm not gonna be around for the next couple of days. I had to be back in Ohio with family. They're like, That's crazy. We're actually in Ohio doing an opening for a brand new store. I was like, No way, where? And they're like, Canton, Ohio, which I'm from North Canton, Ohio. So uh my grandfather had a heart attack, and so I was at the hospital, and they're opening a clean eats five minutes down the road from the hospital of all places. So they sent food over for my entire family and the like flowers and stuff. And at that time, we were sitting in the hospital for a couple days. My parents are like, well, let's go over and meet them and like thank them for the food and just the gesture and everything. So they go over, kind of meet them for the first time. They end up sitting down talking for like 30, 45 minutes, and they committed right there on the spot to uh buying three franchises in Knoxville, Tennessee. So it's a crazy turn of events. But for the reason for Knoxville, uh, we used to come down here boating. We've always been a big boating family. So we would come down here during the uh summers and stuff and rent like a cabin and boat. So they always said if they wanted to like do their own thing and retire, this is where they wanted to be. So they figured they're gonna go all in all in on this, this is where they wanted to do it. So that's kind of our long story short, how we got started on clean eats.

SPEAKER_02:

What now? Did you live to Knoxville?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I was living in Wilmington still. That took some serious convincing. So I was like, hey, congratulations, super happy for you guys, but I'm staying here at the beach, go do your thing. And uh my dad was like, Hey man, like I need you as my right-hand manager to do this. So after about three or four months, that was probably one of the hardest like things. Is like I was kind of in a good spot and I was happy, and but I was like, felt like it was like something that we all needed to do together. So we kind of him coming to an agreement, I end up moving out here uh about three months before we opened our first store in 2017.

SPEAKER_02:

Gotcha. Well, uh, Zach, what are some myths or misconceptions in the restaurant industry?

SPEAKER_00:

Especially clean eating. Yeah, clean eating for sure. Um, I think the biggest thing is that it has to be boring. So everybody assumes that the chicken and rice and broccoli is the only way to be healthy. And our whole model is designed around portion control. Um, so we obviously serve food in its most whole natural state without adding extra fats and oils and uh sodium and things like that. That's our model, but it's portion control at its finest. So you can still eat good tasting food and enjoy your food without having to sacrifice all that just in the name of being healthy and in good shape. So that's the biggest narrative that we're always combating.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sure. Uh I'm sure. Yeah. Well, outside of work, what do you like to do for fun?

SPEAKER_00:

Big but big boating family for sure. So we're blessed to have the lakes here in Knoxville. Uh, so we get on the lake as much as we can, out in the out in the boat, country music, the whole thing. Um, other than that, hiking, we get down to Smoky Mountains, not as much as we like to, but definitely love to get out hiking and fit, just stay active and fitness.

SPEAKER_02:

Very cool. Now, are you a UT fan yet?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm slowly converted. The problem is I'm an Ohio State Buckeye at heart, but so I never expect my two worlds to collide because I love the vols and I love going to game day experiences. So last year in the playoffs when they met, it was a very conflicting. I was about the only one in this entire town that was wearing Scarlet. So, but yeah, they're good. I love going to Tennessee games, they're so much fun, and the fans are awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a it's a lot of fun. Buck you know, Ohio games are pretty cool too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, they're two incredible fan bases, so I'm for sure lucky.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, my my son married a girl from uh from Ohio, and yeah, so we we have that same issue.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome, a lot of the same walks.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, yep. So um let's change gears for a second. Can you think of a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome and came out stronger on the other side? Anything come to mind?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I kind of speak for my family on this one. Uh, I think just doing these businesses, so um just traditional middle class family. I mean, we me and my sister were definitely like blessed growing up, but my my dad and parents always worked worked very hard, and my dad would work 80 to 100 hours weeks in the restaurant industry for most of my entire uh childhood. And so when they decided to do this, they had built a house, you know, we had a boat, we had two cars, like it was just life was good, it was comfortable. So going all in on that required massive sacrifice. So they sold the house, they sold the boat, they sold their cars, can stripped it down to one car, and then me, my sister, and my parents, and our two giant labs all moved into a three-bedroom apartment for the first year we did this because it was all chips in on the table to build this first store. So we've been super blessed and super lucky with you know how this community has accepted us, but that whole time was something I think none of us will forget of what it was like, you know, working those crazy hours and just going all in on something that was a dream, but you didn't know exactly how it was going to work out.

SPEAKER_02:

And here you are, five stores later.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

That's awesome. Awesome. So um, Zach, if you could think of one thing that you'd like our listeners to remember about you and about clean eats, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I think our humble beginnings is a big part of it because it kind of just it still emanates in our stores today. Um, we have cafes, which being a meal plan company is not common. So most people think it's a either a delivery or pickup process. We have full restaurant full cafes. You can sit down and have a hot meal in there. We have snacks, we have smoothies, but we take a lot of pride in our customer service and how we trade and treat people and engage with community. So I highly encourage anybody if you have whether it's one of ours or another clean eats, like go in and check it out because the customer experience you're gonna have and the environment that is inside those stores is unmatched.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome, very good thing to remember. And for those of us who'd like to, you know, come check you out in any one of your stores, Asheville, Knoxville, Marysville, uh, Maryville, sorry. Um, how can we learn more?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, all of our stores have their own social media pages. So we're on Facebook and Instagram. Uh it'll be CleanEats Knoxville for the Farragut one, Clean Eats Beard in Clean Eats Marival, and so on. Um, we also have our website, cleaneats.com. You can learn more about our stores. Um, message us on either Facebook or Instagram. We're constantly active on there. Happy to answer any questions anybody may have. Or best yet, just come in and see us. Just come in, introduce yourself, tell us where you heard about us from, and we'd love to meet you.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome, awesome, very good. Well, Zach, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking time out of your busy, obviously busy schedule and uh spending some time telling us all about you and Clean Eats and your family story. And uh, we wish you and your family and uh and all your stores all the best moving forward.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome. Thank you so much for having us.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely, and maybe we can maybe we can have you back sometime.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds good to me.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, man. Have a great rest of the day.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP Tri Dash Cities dot com. That's GNP Tri Dash Cities dot com or call four two three seven one nine five eight seven three