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Have you ever ever stepped out of Widener Library for a research break at Pinocchio’s solely to seek out the scarfed-down meal slows you down? The collaborators at Life Alive Natural Café and Down Below College of Yoga are decided to maintain your power ignited. Their first-ever collaboration, Wellness Oasis, which opened at 22 John F. Kennedy Road on March 1st, strives to show our mental mecca right into a religious hub. Based on Life Alive’s CEO Bryan Timko, their mission is rooted in a vital tenet: “how we eat, transfer, and suppose influences how we really feel.”
Having graduated from Harvard Enterprise College in 2002, Timko is aware of how Harvard Sq. ticks and find out how to amplify its power. “The people who find themselves right here create an mental heart not only for Massachusetts but in addition on the planet,” he says.
With 5 different areas in Massachusetts, Stay Alive serves its guests with vegan and vegetarian meals as wholesome and vibrant because the area itself; their signature rainbow motif is clear even within the colourful particulars of every dish. Life Alive targets 40% of the American inhabitants who outline themselves as flexitarians, a brand new time period to explain those that primarily select vegetarian choices however can’t keep away from the occasional temptation of the juicy Tasty Burger cheeseburger. Timko describes the café as a “spa for [his] insides.”
Diners boast about feeling higher after a meal at Life Alive. Alma Russell ’25 appreciates Stay Alive’s vegan-vegetarian menu inspiring everybody–past flexitarians–to have a extra vegetable and fruit primarily based weight loss program for their very own well being advantages in addition to environmental causes. As a vegan herself, Russell stated, “I like seeing a menu the place dairy is a marked possibility moderately than the opposite means round. It’s rather more inclusive and the meals tasted the identical and higher to all my non-vegan mates.”
Timko partnered with Justine Cohen, Founder and Director of the Down Below College of Yoga, to include motion and considering into the area. Originating in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, Down Below mixes classical and leading edge yoga methods of their teacher-focused motion program with an emphasis on meditation and wellness.
Mary Cipperman exemplified the success of the collaboration’s emphasis on consuming, considering, and transferring. “[My friends and I] discovered that [the Wellness Oasis] was a classy and comfy place to get work performed, train, or seize meals. The underside flooring is especially comfy with lofi music and mushy lighting…we additionally cherished their açaí bowls, latte choices, and wholesome lunches. Total, we had a fantastic expertise and plan to return!” she stated.
Cohen was pleasantly stunned about how naturally the 2 well being facilities meshed. Throughout opening weekend, Down Below supplied free yoga lessons to all guests, and Cohen obtained compliments in regards to the pure stream between her studio and the café. “I used to be educating throughout the opening weekend and there was this pretty buzz,” she shares. “It was like going to sleep with the sound of a celebration in the lounge… The entire college students got here out to odor the aromas. Three individuals coincidently ended up in the identical yoga class and stayed to share a meal collectively afterwards.”
This Harvard Sq. location holds a big part of the café and one of many two motion studios on the bottom degree. A colourful mantra is emblazoned on the stairwell to the underside flooring: “To energise the vitality of all dwelling beings on the planet.” Within the downstairs Blue Lounge, keen Harvard college students monopolize the brand new research area, Life Alive bowls in a single hand and laptops within the different. The rainbow arsenal of the spices exemplified in each dish compliments the lavender aromas and staple lovely blue environment of Down Below.
Down Below seeks to sort out problems with equality and race throughout the yogi group by growing black instructor participation in health areas and treating academics higher than the minimal fundamental degree for well being and health instructors. Diminishing the racial hole within the health trade, Ashley Mitchell, one of many studio’s hottest instructors, spent her profession working as a racial activist chief. Down Below treats all of their 80 academics scattered over 5 areas as staff, providing sick days, maternity depart, and entry to healthcare—uncommon advantages for health instructors. Cohen goals to set a typical of remedy for its academics and be on the frontline of accelerating range on this area.
Likewise, Culinary Director Leah Debois rewards her crew with the advantages of the Wellness Oasis; all Life Alive staff are supplied nice reductions on yoga in addition to an preliminary two weeks of free lessons. “They like to have the entry to have the ability to slip out of labor and slip straight into a category,” Debois explains.
To rejoice the opening, the Wellness Oasis supplied the Happiness Sabbatical: two months of free meals from Life Alive and free yoga and meditation for Down Below granted to the 4 chosen of 300 candidates. Searching for to enhance group wellness, this system additionally presents one-on-one conferences with nutritionists in addition to counseling on stress and nervousness. All through the eight weeks, every winner will put on an Oura Ring, a wearable sleep and exercise tracker. The remainder of the candidates have been gifted a wellness immersion for a month of limitless yoga, meditation, health and extra.
This wellness collaboration extends from shared beliefs to dishes. Debois celebrates the connection between sleep, vibrancy, and power via weight loss program. Throughout her seven years at Life Alive, Debois has utilized her traditional culinary background to vegan-vegetarian delicacies to compose dishes just like the extremely fashionable Buddha Bowl. A joint product of Down Below and Life Alive, the bowl is “reflective of the Life Alive pantry that celebrates the spices that get that digestive fireplace going,” says Debois. “A mixture of uncooked and cooked greens, and a few jalapenos on prime, … offers some good power in there with some good proteins like almonds and avocados,” she provides. “It was alleged to be a seasonal dish however individuals appear to adore it, so it’s staying on the menu.”
The healthful power propagates via the placement all the way down to even the best particulars just like the names of the dishes. Charlotte Baker ’24 suggests, “Boost your ordering expertise by selecting a smoothie or salad primarily based on the names—as an illustration, I like requesting a Love Little one or Forbidden Kale. Kale tastes so a lot better when it’s not allowed.”
Eliza Kimball ’25 (elizakimball@college.harvard.edu) wrote this text sitting in Stay Alive’s Blue Lounge with their Blue Magic smoothie in hand.
