Lorraine Vontista – Eagle Rock Juice Co.'s Plant-Based Kitchen
At SuccessGirl, we celebrate women who live with conviction, and Lorraine Vontista certainly fits the bill. Lorraine is a 21st century Renaissance woman – a San Francisco State Film School graduate turned culinary entrepreneur, anthroposophy student, and landscape designer who has a penchant for learning and a love for teaching others. Her shop, Eagle Rock Juice Co’s Plant-Based Kitchen, is as much a place of discovery as it is a juice shop and plant-based kitchen, with Lorraine daily educating their patrons on everything from human biorhythms to the anatomy of a flowering plant.
The value of being connected to the food one eats has always been a part of Lorraine’s life, with her grandfather, a Filipino immigrant turned chef at the Disney Hotel, cultivating squash, carrots, broccoli, onions, eggplant, and spinach in their family garden for use at the kitchen counter when Lorraine was a child. It wasn’t until her twenties, however, that life circumstances persuaded Lorraine into earnestly managing the ingredients she consumed.
A period of poor health that began in college saw Lorraine visiting practitioners, reading books, studying yoga and zen body therapy, and meditating, but the onslaught of health woes continued for a long eight years. Somewhere along the way, Lorraine was inspired to try a “raw feast,” consuming only raw plant-based meals for 6 weeks, and almost immediately afterward began to see unbelievable differences in her health, most markedly being able to conceive, which had previously been one of the most difficult side effects of her state of health.
Getting pregnant changed Lorraine’s set of beliefs about the importance of our diets, with diet serving as a gateway for understand deeper patterns of health and wellness and this experience set her on a path of dreaming up and planning the launch of her store. Lorraine opened Eagle Rock Juice Co. in 2012, just a week after finding out that she was pregnant with her second child, but her quest for learning only continued with an herbal apprenticeship and study of biodynamic rhyths through Thegaia School of Healing and Plant Medicine. Following this apprenticeship, Lorrain started a second company called Plants and Lovers focusing specifically on plant-based food and its healing effects on the body and spirit, which she pairs with her original juice company venture as Eagle Rock Juice Co.’s Plant-Based Kitchen.
We recently sat down to ask Lorraine some additional questions, so feel free to peruse some tidbits from our conversation below!
SG: Can you point to characteristics/hobbies you had in your childhood that signaled you might be an entrepreneur? Do you have any fun anecdotes regarding the above?
LV: I liked to rally people and get them excited about things, especially things that I liked. I remember I liked to start clubs and collect money to buy things for each member. For my very first club, I was president of the Stray Cats fan club at my school. I kept the money we collected in my dad’s safe to buy pins and whatnot!
SG: What were some obstacles you faced in your early days of entrepreneurship, and how did you overcome those roadblocks? What did you learn from those obstacles?
LV: I believed that every relationship I was rearing to keep for a lifetime and that money wasn’t that important as long as I was happy and the people I worked with were happy. Then I realized that making or keeping people happy was not my job. The best thing I’ve learned about entrepreneurship is learning how to keep me happy so I can stay prolific in my offerings to our communities.
SG: What do you enjoy most about running Eagle Rock Juice Co’s Plant-Based Kitchen?
LV: I don’t run this business, this business runs me! What I love is that my business is one of my greatest teachers. This business feels to me like a force to be reckoned with and that not a day goes by where I don’t learn at least 5 things that change my life, my perspective, or how I approach life. The people I meet are certainly fascinating as well. People come into this shop for all sorts of reasons but someone looking for a juice is definitely looking for something in their life or an alternate approach to their food or health. These are my people for sure.
SG: In your experience, what are the most important facets of being a successful entrepreneur?
LV: Being prepared, being on time, having integrity, never gossiping, treating people with kindness and respect no matter what, having self-respect and self-love, and being savvy with money. And it helps to have successful and fun-loving people around you that aren’t afraid to share their secrets!
SG: What are the most pervasive business distractions you think today’s entrepreneurs face?
Being distracted by your own demons, getting in your own way, and any negative talk you speak to yourself.
SG: What advice would you give to a young female entrepreneur?
LV: Women run businesses very differently, so develop your intuition for running a business however you can, study and learn all the rules that men have used to run businesses, but know that woman have their own way of doing things!
We owe our gratitude to Lorraine for sharing her story with us. Make sure to visit Lorraine’s shop next time you’re in Eagle Rock, and until then, check out her website at www.plantsandlovers.com.
