Rashena Burroughs is the Queen of Clean Cuisine
Most people make a conscious effort to become a vegetarian or a vegan. Rashena Burroughs says she’s been vegan since birth.
“I was the only kid in my family who didn’t drink milk,” she says of being lactose intolerant her entire life. She was also “that kid in the house advocating for the animals. People laughed that I would get a ‘cheeseburger—hold the burger and hold the cheese’ in the Happy Meal.”
Fast forward a few decades and the Summit-born, East Orange–raised Burroughs, 51, now owns and operates five vegan and health-based businesses—all in her adopted home of Newark. She’s often called a serial entrepreneur, and the label is certainly appropriate. With Blueberry Café Juicebar & Vegan Grille, The Zucchini Bar Herbal Teas & Treats, Aqua Phit Water Bar and Luxury Gym, and even Magic Cones Plant Based Ice Cream Parlor all opening in the last five years, along with her newest endeavor, Plants & Poets Café, you might expect her to display at least a few signs of strain. Instead, she is positively radiant, seeming much younger than her years—a walking advertisement for the healthy, vegan lifestyle promoted in all of her businesses.
It wasn’t always this way. Although she avoided meat and dairy throughout childhood, Burroughs recalls that she wasn’t exactly eating “healthy.”
“By the time I was about 18, I started paying attention to nutrition because I was 190 pounds at 4 feet, 11 inches, and over-weight,” she explains. A school assembly with the (now late) Dr. Llaila O. Afrika (author of African Holistic Health (EWorld Inc, 1989) led to a paradigm shift.
“Dr. Afrika came to school talking about nutrition and vita-mins” and a colleague also recommended the books of “Dr.” Sebi (a.k.a. the late Alfredo Bowman, a controversial self-proclaimed holistic healer from Honduras). By studying the work of both men, Burroughs realized she needed to change her diet and so she cut down on sugar and began using ancient grains instead of white rice and pastas. The path to her healthy lifestyle had begun.
“BEING IN OTHER AREAS WOULD NOT SATISFY MY SOUL. WHEN I CAME TO NEWARK INITIALLY, I FELL IN LOVE WITH THE CITY, ALL THESE BEAUTIFUL PARKS. IT’S BIG, BUT IT’S SMALL SO EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYBODY.”
Perhaps surprisingly, her determination to live organically did not begin with cooking but while working as a hair stylist in a chemical-free salon. By 19, she wanted to open her own place with all-natural hair products. While buying equipment for the store, she met the owner of Mirror Max Salon Equipment.
“We talked and he liked my business plan. But he said, ‘Don’t open the beauty parlor yet—let me teach you and make you a partner!’ My family thought I was crazy, but he admired my creativity, while recognizing that I was young and needed guidance.” Burroughs accepted the offer and reflects, “I gained so many skills, like accounting, invoicing, sales, marketing—all invaluable practical experience.”
By 2001, Burroughs was ready to open her own hair salon with all-plant-based products. For 16 years at her salons in Irvington and later, Newark, she also incorporated her love for healthy food by teaching the clients about nutritious meals—particularly helpful for those dealing with hair loss. She explains, “Saturday was Smoothie Day and I’d also cook vegan meals for staff and customers.”
In 2016, she started to develop carpal tunnel syndrome and retired from hair styling, but another idea was percolating. She was annoyed that she had to travel all the way to Montclair to find a healthy juice bar and her kids were saying “Mommy, you have to cook for others!” However, while everyone agreed she should share her vegan recipes and knowledge with the world, they did not agree with opening a store in Newark.
“You’ll be rich if you go to Hoboken or Montclair,” she recalls being advised. “In Newark, there’s tons of fast food. They won’t want YOUR food!” But she was determined, declaring, “just because they build McDonald’s and Burger King in the neighborhood doesn’t mean that’s all people want! They just don’t have access to better options!”
Burroughs continues passionately, “Being in other areas would not satisfy my soul. When I came to Newark initially, I fell in love with the city, all these beautiful parks. It’s big, but it’s small so everyone knows everybody.”
It was also through her Newark connections that she met Gennis Bernard from Corona Health Food, the popular West Ward market. “He came to speak at a nutrition workshop at the salon and I asked him to help me open the café,” she recalls. “He gave his job a year notice and we opened Newark’s first vegan café, The Blueberry Café, exactly a year afterwards.”
The community embraced the café. “When we first opened people introduced themselves and said how they’ve been living here for many years and never had healthy food options.” Burroughs smiles widely as she recounts that U.S. Senator Cory Booker, a vegan himself, held his birthday party at the café on only the second day they were open for business. “The party was a huge success and the senator is now a friend of mine,” she says.
With plant-based foods, some people prefer meals that mimic meat, while others want to cook vegetables in unique ways while still being aware of the vegetables they are eating. Burroughs personally prefers the later.
“I can’t eat it if it even looks like meat—I know it’s vegan, but mentally I can’t do it,” she says emphatically. However, in introducing food to her customers she knows that some people are more comfortable with the beef-like textures they grew up with, so Burroughs and her staff experiment. “We use a lot of beets, mushrooms, walnuts, peppers and make it look like meat. We have, ‘walnut tacos’ on the menu, but customers call it ‘walnut meat tacos.’”
For his part, Gennis Bernard has become a key fixture and co-owner at Blueberry Café, where he cooks in a Caribbean-American style (he hails from Trinidad and Tobago). “People call me ‘Chief Chef’!”, he jokes. “I do everything that’s needed. I’m just really like a parent to my customers. I do whatever it takes to take care of my family. I know about 70% of them by name.”
Some customers claim Burroughs’s food has been transformational. Meditation teacher Jeffrey Gay says, “The restaurants saved my life. I had kidney failure. They told me I would never improve, but after learning how to eat from Rashena and Gennis my kidney is healthy.” At 60 years old, retired minister Terry Colbert was diagnosed with blood cancer and told he had three months to live. “I tried chemo for three months and had a terrible allergic reaction,” he recalls. He believes that eating “all-natural food—no [white] rice, no carbs, no sugar, no additives,” at Zucchini Bar and Blueberry Café contributed to his being cancer free for the past five years.
After the success of Blueberry Café, all of Burroughs’s new businesses flowed “organically,” building on past successes. A case in point involves Blueberry Café’s enormously popular zucchini muffins. “Everyone kept coming after work asking for 10, 15 muffins to take home, but we were running out of room. Luckily, one of the other stores on the block had closed, so I said ‘Let’s open a dessert place and call it Zucchini Bar Herbal Teas & Vegan Treats.’” Soon after it opened, Zucchini Bar had its own full-blown menu with a new customer favorite: Lasagna Rolls.
Another example: At all of her establishments, Burroughs has a water filtration system for pure water, and when customers started praising the crisp, delicious taste, Aqua Phit Water Bar & Luxury Gym was born (created with the collaboration of Allen Watson, a fitness trainer). Since most of her staff have been with her since the hair salon, Burroughs developed a fourth business, Magic Cones Plant-Based Ice Cream Parlor “to award them with a business of their own”—with employees sharing net profits each quarter and Burroughs reinvesting her own share back into the company.
“JUST BECAUSE THEY BUILD McDONALD’S AND BURGER KING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD DOESN’T MEAN THAT’S ALL PEOPLE WANT. THEY JUST DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO BETTER OPTIONS.”
A sampling of vegan and plant-based dishes from Burroughs’ establishments, clockwise from top left: Blue Corn Nacho Bowl (The Zucchini Bar), Kamut Pasta and BBQ Mushrooms (Blueberry Café) ; Fish-style Platter (Blueberry Café). (bottom right)Chef Joseph Alexander with pancakes and other breakfast entrees at The Zucchini Bar
As a woman of color opening many establishments all on the same block in the West Ward, it was not always easy. She admits: “Blood, sweat and tears got me here.”
Burroughs’s latest venture was also the result of hard work. Plants & Poets came about after she successfully responded to a request for proposals from Invest Newark to operate a café at the award-wining Gant-Gilbert Arts Collective. The new offshoot is located in the South Ward (about 15 minutes from her other places)—right near the home of another loyal customer, Mayor Ras Baraka. The establishment is decorated with artwork from local artists; the menu items rotate and are always named after inspirational figures such as The Young Hendrix Chipotle Bowl and the Patty La Melt Panini. There’s also a performance space that is often filled with music acts, classes and open mics.
Emily R. Manz, chief business development officer and director of marketing for Invest Newark, notes the impact that Burroughs’s businesses have had in the city, and believes that Plants & Poets Café has already emerged as a stronghold in the South Ward’s artistic and literary community.
“Rashena brings incredible energy to her business and her community. With her creative, delicious businesses, she has activated nearly an entire block in Newark’s West Ward,” notes Manz. “Her commitment to art and collaboration enlivens her newest venture on Clinton Avenue.”
For Burroughs it all comes back to family. With her business and family lives intertwined, her own adult children have certainly inherited her business acumen and her vegan cooking skills. Burroughs’s son, Joseph Alexander (a.k.a. Chef Joe) is the executive chef for The Zucchini Bar; her other son, Anthony Alexander, runs operations and human resources across all of the businesses; and her daughter, Aminah Alexander, is the executive chef at Plants & Poets. Burroughs views her neighbors and customers as an extension of her family and she wants to spread the knowledge of healthy eating to all.
“Food shouldn’t just taste good,” she believes, “it should be good for your cells.”
In the future, Burroughs in all of her businesses not only wants to add more educational wellness workshops, cooking classes and free fitness assessments, but to continue being innovative in her promotion of healthy living. One example is her new Vegan Chess & Chill, a free community giveback event in collaboration with the Newark Chess Club at the Water Bar where people are invited to try some free food while playing chess or just chilling. “I would love to partner with other up-and-coming entrepreneurs to open new cafés and restaurants all over the country,” she says
With such aims and through her many interconnected, community-focused ventures, Rashena Burroughs has taught the cynics an important lesson: If you build, offer and teach about healthy eating, they will indeed come—and establish a healthier lifestyle and community in the process.
Rashena with Gennis Bernard
RASHENA BURROUGHS ESTABLISHMENTS:
Aqua Phit Water Bar and Luxury Gym
547 Central Ave., Newark
973.732.6653
Instagram: @aqua_phit_gym_waterbar
Blueberry Café Juicebar & Vegan Grille
547 Central Ave., Newark
973.732.1711
iloveblueberrycafe.com
Magic Cones Plant Based Ice Cream Parlor
550-552 Central Ave., Newark
973.583.8676
Instagram: @magic_cones_plant_ice_cream
Plants & Poets Cafe
505 Clinton Ave., Newark
973.944.2285
plantsnpoetscafe.com
The Zucchini Bar Herbal Teas & Treats
547 Central Ave., Newark
862.241.1025
Instagram: @zucchinibar
