FEATURED RESTAURANT:

Life Alive Urban Oasis and Café

Every month, VegProject features a different veg restaurant. This month, we interviewed Life Alive Urban Oasis and Cafe in Lowell, Massachusetts.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

- Avatar Materials

Walking into the Life Alive Urban Oasis and Organic Café in Lowell, Massachusetts, you might see a quote like this on the Wisdom Board behind the counter in place of a menu. The Board serves two purposes. It welcomes guests to an inviting and inspirational experience that is beyond food, and it encourages people to talk about the menu rather than reading it from a board.

The importance of community, connectedness and inspiration is honored at Life Alive, and the name of the café is an indication of the restaurant’s philosophy. “The space that I had always dreamed of creating was a space that awakens peoples’ senses, thoughts, and spirits. I envisioned a space where people would feel safe and inspired to let down their guards and feel life fully,” says founder and CEO Heidi Feinstein. “Everything that we share, whether its whole food, the colors of our surroundings, or our excitement about our products, is about celebrating life and human potential. Living Life Fully Alive!”

Because a full life is more than just what you eat, Heidi defines food as anything that “nourishes us as human beings.” She says “Food is art, love, friendship, and inspiration. Delicious vibrant food is a vital component of Life Alive…but so is soulful service, sensuality, creativity, community, curiosity, and connection. That’s what Life Alive celebrates, and why we’re so unique.”

Life Alive has been offering vegetarian food, wellness workshops, and organic natural products as well as connecting people to local organizations dedicated to creativity, democracy and sustainability since 2004. Every choice and action made in the restaurant is geared for nurturing every person who walks through the door. “From chopping our vegetables and cleaning the grains by hand with love and gratitude to serving our gorgeous dishes with joy and pride, to providing a reference library, great music, comfortable cushions, and inspiring art, our focus is on our guests,” says Heidi.

Every ingredient combination on the Life Alive menu is chosen to support and rejuvenate. The focus is on lightly steamed food with raw sauces so that each dish is full of enzymes to help digestion, absorption of nutrients and detoxification - stimulating circulation, reducing inflammation and protecting cells.

“A single dish at Life Alive is designed to be not only beyond delicious and beautiful – but each dish is also mindfully combined to supply the body with everything that it needs to survive and thrive,” says Heidi. “Based on Chinese medicine, every flavor (bitter, pungent, sweet, salty, unagi) as well as every nutrient is included and in balance so that the body can easily absorb and assimilate the meal, be fully satisfied, and have long term energy without cravings. When people eat at Life Alive, they are energized for hours and also not hungry for a long time. This is food that tastes and feels great.”

Heidi’s favorite dish is Life Alive’s signature dish, The Goddess – a blend of smoked tofu, short grain brown rice, steamed carrots, beets, broccoli, and dark greens surrounded by zesty Ginger Nama Shoyu dressing. “It’s inspired the entire menu, and I never, ever, ever, get sick of it,” she says. “I really eat it daily. I still moan while I eat it. It is so colorful and beautiful too, it has every texture I crave, and to make it beyond fantastic I add chopped tamari almonds, pressed garlic, extra lemon juice, and winter squash with flax oil….and I’m transported to heaven.”

Heidi came up with The Goddess when she was a full time student with no money, and Life Alive is her answer to the growing need for affordable, fast, nurturing foods. The guests she attracts proves the wide range of people that seek out this nourishment. A typical afternoon at Life Alive finds a bank president in line beside a laborer; a young Latina student next to a police officer; a city official beside a new mother with her child, and a New England Patriots football player next to a vegan rock star. “Healthy food doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. With a full schedule or school, work and internship, I knew I needed quality foods to give me the energy I needed. Whole foods are simple to prepare. Grains, seeds, veggies and healthy condiments are not complicated!” she says.

Her advice for anyone with a new year’s resolution to get healthy, is to focus on taking in more pleasurable healing foods rather than focusing on cutting the bad stuff out. “Focusing on the negative and can take joy away from life. It’s much more plausible for us to succeed at improving our wellness and awakening our potential when our intent is to bring more positive in,” she says. “They destructive and harmful things around us will naturally reduce their hold on us, and we naturally reduce our intake of them when we add the beneficial ingredients to our lives!”

At Life Alive, this philosophy extends to creating a positive business that is both socially and environmentally responsible. The café partners with local urban farming enterprises and community empowerment groups, and seeks out and promotes fair-trade, organic, and local foods first. They also audit the lifecycle of all their products, through sourcing, use and disposal and all of their to-go packaging and paper goods are either recycled or compostable.

“Every procedure, policy, and purchase is made with the economic, environmental, and social consequences foremost in mind. Prioritizing this way enables Life Alive to offer investors an opportunity to affiliate with a business known for its integrity of purpose, extraordinary quality, outstanding team members, heart-felt hospitality, strong ties with exceptional suppliers, and a solid commitment to playing an active, valuable role in its community,” says Heidi.

Heidi hopes to fill the gap for people who don’t want to compromise on taste, atmosphere or their principles when eating out, even on the go. Right now, some of her customers regularly travel from over an hour away to eat at Life Alive. She is currently gathering funds from socially conscious investors to open more than one location in major metro markets in New England.