Community Highlights: Meet Joseph Stone of Superfood Bar

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Stone. 

Hi Joseph, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Growing up in the ’70s, I spent many years living with my father and stepmother on their organic vegetable farm in rural Arkansas. My stepmother (and personal food hero!) Desiree was an amazing cook and loved experimenting with healthy, plant-based recipes. I remember spending endless hours deep in the forest that surrounded our farm studying nature and its interrelated systems. From then on, I made it a goal to learn as much as I could about sustainable food practices. 

As a young man, I traveled across the country to follow my two passions: music and food. During those formative years, I gathered all the information I could on all types of health-food retail models. I researched their menus, ingredients, practices, and business models. I have frequented and worked at raw and vegan restaurants since 1988. By the time I opened Superfood Bar in the fall of 2009, I had worked in over 35 restaurants including several health-food cafes as well as in the fine dining arena alongside renowned Chefs such as Sean Brock and Bobby Benjamin. What started out as a 180 square foot storefront to sell my homemade Kombucha, on the then lackluster stretch of Magazine Street, soon became a full-fledged cafe restaurant. 

This is when my dear friend and restaurant August alumni, Chef Amie Havens, joined the team. Through years of trial-and-error, Amie and I invested great energy in creating and perfecting the most wholesome & nutritious cuisine while staying true to our original concepts of sustainability and culinary precision. Our New Orleans location sadly closed in 2019 after proudly serving the beloved New Orleans community for close to 10 years. It was our honor to be a part of it for such a long time. 2017 marked an opportunity for a second Superfood Bar in beautiful Denver, Colorado. Previous trips to Colorado exposed me to the amazing health food scene and progressive ideas around sustainability. So, that summer, my wife Eva and I packed up a U-Haul and drove out to Denver, where the second location of Superfood Bar officially opened in December 2017. It wasn’t an easy road, but we couldn’t be happier to be part of this vibrant and blossoming community! We have yet to lose any of our roots and feel privileged to be able to share them with you. 

After many years in this industry, I’ve watched trends come and go. The cuisine and practices of Superfood Bar are educated by food science, as well as my years working in fine-dining restaurants. All of this culminates in the incredible dishes we serve at Superfood Bar. Cooking Is my passion and why I opened Superfood Bar in the first place; to serve you something better than the watered-down health food which has become standard in the industry. 

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It wasn’t an easy road and we encountered several issues from the very beginning. Not only was Superfood Bar always underfunded (I started the company with a $1 600 loan from my sister and never truly found the financial support I needed) but there were also problems with our first and now former investor which led to a difficult, painful and expensive separation in 2020. While we were trying to find a solution with our previous investor, the pandemic hit and we lost most of our employees. My wife Eva had to jump in and we both worked alone for almost 3 months before we finally found a new employee willing to work hard with us. 

According to our records, I have averaged 77.87 hours of work a week for the last 2 years with no day off except for Thanksgiving and Christmas break. Having grown up on a farm I was already acclimated to hard work and now, with our first child on the way (Eva is due at the end of April) I am even more determined to push myself to reach our goals. We are still recovering from the labor shortage and the supply chain issues which makes some of the products we need to run efficiently very difficult to find but we hope that we saw the worst of it! 

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The Superfood Bar story started in New Orleans in 2009 as the very first vegan restaurant in the state of Louisiana. At the time the very use and meaning of the word “Superfood”, which is now part of our everyday vocabulary, was still unknown to the public. Of the 150 plus restaurants that have called themselves Superfood Bar, our New Orleans location was the first. We are the original! Our mission is to make healthy eating attractive and accessible to everyone. 

From the beginning, Superfood Bar has employed an ethical and sustainable “whole food approach” and only uses 100% organic and plant-based ingredients. This means no preservatives, no added sugars, no ready-made nut milks as well as no gluten, no soy, and no corn. All without sacrificing any of the taste! We strive to cultivate a superior and sustainable restaurant model that utilizes effective food and kitchen management techniques learned from the talented chefs we’ve met along the way. We support our community by making lasting relationships with local purveyors and sourcing only the best organic ingredients for our customers. We guarantee that you are getting the dedication to quality that makes Superfood Bar so special! 

What’s next?
We have big plans for the future! Superfood Bar is a wealth of untapped inspiration for recipes, cookbooks, social media content, even potential franchising but we can’t do it without an investor by our side. One of the projects we have already put in motion is the bottling and selling of our house-made hot sauce. We would love to create an online store to sell not only the hot sauce but many of our other sauces and specialty items, maybe even nationwide! Another project would be to set up a meal subscription service (like Purple Carrot for example), first for local, then regional distribution. One thing covid taught us is that we need more of an online presence. All of these projects have been on my mind for years because I knew they would be successful and great for the company, but having always been self-funded I just never had the finances to make them a reality. 

Contact Info:

• Email: superfoodbardenver@gmail.com
• Website: www.theoriginalsuperfoodbar.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superfoodbardenver/?hl=fr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TotJMSV-p0&t=40s
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/superfood-bar-denver
• Other: https://vimeo.com/670923429

Image Credits:
Caleb Clayton