Just call it TYME Square.
A new fast food company has set up shop in the middle of Times Square — offering jars filled with healthy ingredients such as kale, avocado and beets.
TYME is the brainchild of Phil Winser, who is also behind the Lower East Side hot spot Fat Radish. He teamed up with Felipe Hallot, a Burger King alum, to launch the fast food company, which specializes in nutritionally-balanced, affordable meals.
“We want to eat real food at an affordable price, but it’s so hard to find,” Winser said. “We’ve been thinking about this idea for so many years — there’s a reason getting real food to people affordably, at scale, and fresh is a challenge.”
TYME is Winser’s answer to that problem. Its jars, which are pre-made at a kitchen in the Pfizer Building in Brooklyn, are $10 and feature layers of fresh, healthy ingredients, with a balance of protein and fiber for a “slow-burning energy after you eat,” Hallot said.
There are six jars on the menu at any given time, served cold and inspired by cuisines from around the world. Current offerings include Italian (kale and white bean salad, roasted eggplant, red peppers and farro), Indian (turmeric-roasted cauliflower, coconut cumin beets and a lentil pilaf) and Mexican (pico de gallo, guacamole, black beans and cilantro brown rice). More meals are in the works, including a falafel jar and a grainless option that uses cauliflower rice.
“It’s all about creating balanced meals for people when you’re on the move,” Winser said. “The jars happened first and foremost out of convenience and transparency — you can eat it on the subway. The layering effect allows the food to stay fresh.”
TYME debuted this past spring at the Frieze Art Fair, and has since been available for online delivery via ChowNow and at the Gansevoort Market in the Meatpacking District. On July 24, it debuted in Times Square, with an 8-by-12-foot kiosk, dubbed the TYME Capsule, selling the jars, as well as snacks by Nuts.com, La Colombe draft lattes and Spindrift sparkling water.
The kiosk is open from 10 a.m.-midnight in Duffy Square, at Broadway and West 46th Street (ironically across the street from a McDonald’s, Winser pointed out), and is slated to be up through the end of the year for pickup or takeaway.
TYME is also available through UberEats and throughout Manhattan at several WeWork locations, an Equinox and Bridges General, with plans in the works for a SoHo storefront. Winser would also like to open more TYME Capsules.
“It’s designed around the ability to be super convenient,” Winser said. “We hope these things are going to pop up in parks, train stations, all over the city.”
