Not Just a Theory

By Naperville Magazine
Appears in the May 2025 issue.

By Peter Gianopulos

New restaurant celebrates all things avocado

In recent years, Krunal Patel has devoted an incalculable amount of time to studying the skins of avocados—those fibrous, jungle-green husks that we indiscriminately toss, en masse, into our kitchen trash cans. Patel is fascinated by avocados, not just their creamy lime-colored inner flesh but their unglamorous bits, too, including their seeds and skin.

At the newest location of his expanding Avocado Theory restaurant empire in Naperville (scheduled to open in May), you can order almost 70 different dishes, all of which include avocados in one form or another. There’s no menu quite like it anywhere in the Chicago area—perhaps the world. His kitchen prepares fluffy avocado-banana flapjacks. Planks of wild-caught salmon dressed in an avocado butter sauce. Four variations of avocado toast, plus avocado-filled rice bowls, soups, and wraps as well as Patel’s pride and joy: a creamy avocado-based cheesecake that not even Eli’s would dare attempt.

“People underestimate the avocado,” says Patel, whose restaurants go through 16,000 avocados per month. “They’re flavorful, versatile, and offer extraordinary health benefits.”

Upon emigrating to the United States when he was 21, Patel couldn’t tell an avocado from an artichoke. Initially, he pursued a more traditional career path, climbing through the ranks at Walmart. But after an unexpected layoff, which led him to take a job working as a produce manager at Mariano’s, he noticed that shoppers spent more money on guacamole during football season than college students spent on energy drinks during finals week.

So he started making his own guac, called Grandma’s Guacamole, and selling it at local farmers’ markets. This led to more experimentation. Now, he prepares everything from avocado-seed teas to nutritional supplements made from avocado pits in a true skin-to-seed avocado menu.

After launching his first Avocado Theory location in Tinley Park in 2021, he introduced an swag section to the restaurant. Think Avocados ’R Us. Avocado-based soaps. Avocado oils. Avocado-themed socks, keychains, and other curios. His ultimate goal? Create an online avocado superstore, complete with avocado-themed clothes, food products, and trinkets. “Sometimes,” Patel says, “dreaming impossible dreams is the only way to achieve them.”

Photos: Krunal Patel