Fast food usually means fried, mass-produced, unhealthy fare, laden with trans fat and high-fructose corn syrup. But what if you could pick up a quick bite that’s nutritious, organic, reasonably priced, sustainably produced – and tasty, too?

That’s what Fred Marken is providing at Grilla Bites, a small but growing chain of restaurants with two outlets in the Northern California college town of Chico, and two more a few hours north in Ashland and Medford, Oregon. The company’s mission: “to support our environment and community while maintaining a healthy responsibility to our customers through the food we serve.”

Instead of a Big Mac, you can order an Organic Soy Burger or a Wild Salmon Burger topped with grilled onions, tomato, spinach, and aioli. Forget Egg McMuffins; stop in at Grilla Bites some morning for a Grilla Breakfast Burrito, two poached eggs or tofu scramble with black beans, brown rice, and cheddar cheese, wrapped in a flour tortilla or a corn-cilantro crepe. The food comes mostly from local farms, including Marken’s own 100-acre asparagus farm south of Ashland, Oregon.

Though the chain has only four restaurants, (the first location opened in Chico in December 2002; the most recent opened in Ashland in May 2006) Marken, 64, hopes to spread the gospel of healthy, sustainable eating throughout the Northwest and beyond. He recently shared his business plans and thoughts about food in an interview with LIME.