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Pasadena just got healthier with the addition of SunLife Organics, which opened the first week of April in the happening Commons courtyard on South Lake Avenue.
The shop serves up fresh juices, superfood shakes, and bowls with popular nutritious ingredients like cacao, chia seeds, açai, maca, hemp milk, goji berries and MCT oil —supposedly like coconut oil on steroids. Many of the offerings are fruit-focused so healthy eating newbies need not be intimidated.
You can also kick your froyo game up a notch since SunLife serves organic, kosher probiotic froyo from Cloud Top, founded by a local Pasadena mom. Top it with items like fruit and gluten-free brownie crumbles.
Originally founded in Point Dume, Malibu in 2011, SunLife Organics was started by a former Skid Row drug addict who got sober and passionate about health. Hence all of SunLife's ingredients are 100% certified organic, wildcrafted, or pesticide-free and everything behind the counter is free of gluten and refined sugars.
The Pasadena outpost is the first in the area for the small wellness-focused chain that also set up shop in Thousand Oaks and Calabasas. SunLife wants to show that their healthy sustenance isn't just for the beach area crowd, SunLife VP of Operations Crista Aladjadjian told Eater.
Like its other locations, SunLife Pasadena has shelves of housemade packaged meals like salads and vegan lentil loaf or grab n' go snacks such as paleo granola, raw sweets, juice and Kombucha. Soon they'll add bottled bone broth and packaged organic vegan soups to all store shelves and introduce their own line of superfoods like maca, goji berries, and chia seeds. Currently the Pasadena SunLife doesn't offer hot food options like its other locations, though there are hopeful plans for that to change as well.
The small shop, formerly the Cheese Store of Pasadena space, overlooks the picturesque Pasadena courtyard where sushi purist spot Sugarfish and trendy SoulCycle reside, which seems like a good fit. Both businesses encouraged SunLife to open an outpost there since they are neighbors at other locations with similar clientele.
SunLife now sets its sights on Manhattan Beach, where it hopes to open in the Metlox Plaza by July 4.
SunLife Organics
146 S. Lake Ave.
Pasadena, CA
