RABHYA MEHROTRA PHOTO
Sample bowls: Pitaya on the left, Greens on the right.
Patti Ochsendorf filled two cups with a green and pink smoothie base each, then topped it with crunchy honey granola and blueberries, strawberries, mango, and pineapple. The green color came from kale and spinach blend. The pink color came from pitaya, also known as dragonfruit, which has a rough exterior with a pink or white inside.
The result? Tasty. And good for you.
The pink fruit was smooth, with little flecks of black seeds. It tasted sweet, balanced by the tartness of the blueberries and strawberries. The shredded coconut on top gave a creamy finish.
That’s the secret that has kept SoBol on Congress Avenue alive in its first year of bringing healthful food to the Hill.
“The açaí bowls are our most popular product,” said Ochsendorf, who owns SoBol.
Bol opened up SoBol in December right by Yale-New Haven Hospital. The store’s interior is modern and airy, with light wooden trimming and a steel backdrop. Customers can sit inside, but on a sunny recent afternoon, all opted for to-go bags.
SoBol’s menu focuses on healthful foods, offering four main types of smoothie bowls: the Açaí bowl, the Pitaya bowl, the Greens bowl, and the Sunshine bowl. Each has a fruit and vegetable smoothie base mixed with nut or soy milks, which is then topped with granola, honey, and fresh fruit.
SoBol also offers smoothies, overnight oats, soups, baked goods, and Belgian waffles. “We don’t sweeten any of our foods with sugar,” said Ochsendorf. She opts for sweeteners like honey, agave, and in the case of the waffles, maple syrup. “We’re 100 percent – wait no, we have waffles – 98 percent healthy,” she said.
Ochsendorf was inspired by her cousin once-removed, who is one of the co-founders of SoBol. He opened up the first store in Long Island,. Whenever Ochsendorf visited, she would go to his store. “I got into healthy eating a few years ago,” she said, after she experienced health issues.
After she saw the Long Island store grow rapidly and eventually become a franchise, she decided to open one up in New Haven. She employs seven people, including her daughter, who is the store manager. All of the other employees are from New Haven.
Most of her customers come from the hospital and medical school nearby, which has been difficult to manage with Covid. “We were coming up in January and February, and then Covid hit in March,” she said. SoBol stayed open, however, and was able to stay in business thanks to deliveries.
Fulcher, with her bowl.
Word of mouth has helped Ochsendorf’s business.
Camille Fulcher, a second-grade teacher at Highville Charter School, came to SoBol for the first time the other day. One of her friends works at Yale-New Haven Hospital and said “[she] had to try a bowl.” Fulcher ordered the Sunshine bowl, which has a smoothie base of bananas, pineapple, mango and coconut milk. It’s topped with blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, coconut, granola, and honey.
Fitting into New Haven
The store’s exterior on Congress.
“New Haven is busy, with a lot of foot traffic,” said Ochsendorf. “It’s city-like without being a [large] city.”
Ochsendorf hails from a “quiet town,” and was excited to work in New Haven.
Driving around the neighborhood, she found few options for healthful foods. There were ethnic food carts by the hospital, she said, but some were still forms of fast food.
When asked about increasing accessibility to fresh foods in the Hill, a neighborhood which has food deserts, Ochsendorf paused. She acknowledged that the price point was a barrier: “Healthy, fresh food is not inexpensive.” She cited varying prices in fresh fruits throughout the year: in the summer, a flat of strawberries is $20, while the same quantity is $55 in the winter.
“Our bowl prices don’t change, but I’m paying three times more for ingredients,” she said. She’s hoping to get involved with Common Ground High School, which has a fresh garden and supplies local restaurants at a lower cost.
Strawberries, hand chopped every day.
Indeed, the average price for a regular-size smoothie bowl is $10.95; a smoothie is $7.69. “It’s hard for people to jump into a $9 – 10 bowl if you haven’t tried it before,” noted Ochsendorf. She spoke about a doctor who came in, disbelieving that a green smoothie bowl would fill him up. After he tried it, “he came back many times.”
Rashan Boyd has been a few times when he’s looking for a “good, healthy snack.” He ordered the waffles topped with fresh fruit and the Sunshine smoothie.
Brain Wezick, a marshal who works in New Haven, stops by a couple times a week. He typically gets an Açaí bowl, but when “I’m pretending to be healthy, I get the Greens bowl.” He put it best: “When I roll by, I have a hard time not stopping.”