Over the years we’ve always stayed true to our founding principle of cooking and baking from scratch using quality ingredients! Our owner, Jean Bernstein, reflects on how growing up inside the walls of her parents’ health food store helped shape what Flying Star is today.

“As the child of serial entrepreneurs, I spent most of my childhood in one or another of my parents’ various businesses. Their last endeavor before retiring was a small health food store in Albuquerque in 1971 – long before there was a Whole Foods or Sprouts.

My parents were interested in health/natural foods so they rented space in an unlikely strip center next to the AAMCO Transmission shop across the street from the horse barns at the State Fair. Nothing deterred their customers who came for nutritional supplements, alternative (now gluten-free) flours, organic whole grains, herbs, homemade tofu, canned vegan “meats” and resource books.

For me, it turned out to be a charmed experience – we were right at the beginning of the exploding natural foods and wellness movement. I was fortunate to meet some of the movement’s most inspired and brilliant thinkers and makers (like the real Dr. Bronner) who scheduled book lectures at our store. I cooked my way through every health and vegetarian classic like Diet for a Small Planet, Moosewood Cookbook, The Greens Cookbook, Heavenly Banquet, and Ten Talents, (even Julia Child). I began to imagine a better way to eat and live.

When we started our original Double Rainbow café in 1987, all my beliefs and experiences manifested there. 33 years later nothing has changed – We still source our ingredients, cook and bake based on the same principles and beliefs that inspired me long ago. Really good food can and should be good for you!”