From Carol Roizen:

I thought I knew what my life was going to look like, until I had my daughters and life got real. Michelle was born with a rare disease and from then on everything changed. All I wanted was to help my baby get better.

I learned first-hand the healing powers of food. That became my new mission: to learn everything I could in order to support her recovery and to share my knowledge. Most importantly, I wanted to make it easy and accessible for people to have access to real, clean, healthy food. That’s how we first opened a juice bar and started an entrepreneurial adventure that then transformed into Parakeet Cafe.

Parakeet Cafe opened in La Jolla, CA in 2017. Today, Parakeet Café expands across Southern California in 13 locations. Our mission is to create a vibrant and welcoming space where friends and neighbors of all backgrounds come together to celebrate the simple pleasure of sharing a delicious meal and a drink. We are committed to serving real food made with ethically sourced, local and organic ingredients as well as artisanal baked goods that are also made with organic ingredients and are vegan, GF and free of refined sugar. We want to cater to everyone looking to be healthy regardless of where they are in their wellness journey. It is all about the quality.

Being a health coach has helped me craft nutrient-dense and well-balanced menu items that are full of flavor, colors and texture while nourishing your body and soul. Being a lawyer is a very strong foundation for anything that you want to pursue. It’s important to know how to read a contract, and in this industry, to know labor law. I believe everything I’ve learned, whether via a formal education or life experience, has been a stepping stone on my journey that culminated in creating Parakeet Cafe.

The most challenging part of making organic whole food accessible is to make it cost effective without compromising on quality. Very few of our competitors think quality should be a priority. Communicating to the consumer how much care goes into every ingredient that we source is paramount: how we prepare the food without any additives, seed oils or any other ingredients that can be detrimental to one’s health like refined sugars or artificial flavors. This is a challenge, but it is something that we uphold at any cost in order to ensure people experience the difference.

I want to continue doing what I love the most, which is connecting to people, hearing their stories and hopefully making a positive impact in their life. I want to keep creating and serving delicious, healthy food, fantastic baked goods made with love and care and create a community of joy, kindness and an environment that is welcoming, where people feel seen and inspired to pursue their life dreams.