Maya McFadden Photos
EVVO French Toast superfood smoothie.
Owner Julia Stepien.
A superfood cafe called EVVO is a mission of “transforming” the lives of its customers — the way its young founder transformed her own life.
EVVO owner Julia Stepien, 23, opened the cafe at 340 Orange St. last summer to offer healthful fare free of processed ingredients.
The cafe has a menu of dozens of smoothies, tea, coffee, juices, and healthful bites focused on “giving positive energy” to customers.
Stepien, who was raised in Southington after immigrating from Poland as a child, grew up with a home garden that allowed for her to eat fresh produce daily. She is now looking to bring this healthy experience to New Haveners.
“This is how I grew up, but I want to expose healthy eating to all different types of people,” she said.
Stepien’s menu, mostly made up of superfood smoothies, includes a range of smoothie choices from sweet treats with “masked nutrients” to a literal Immunity Boost that has a strong punch of ginger and cayenne pepper.
To make her French Toast smoothie Stepien used oat milk, water, banana, peanut butter, matcha powder, cinnamon, apple pie spice, whey protein powder, honey, granola, and maple syrup.
She gave the smoothie two blends in get a heartier thick consistency.
“This is going to literally going to taste like your French toast breakfast but it will be extremely good for you,” she said.
Watch Stepien make the French Toast smoothie below.
Not long ago Stepien was on a path toward medicine rather than entrepreneurship.
In 2018 Stepien was doing an internship at Yale researching reproductive cells. As an intern she found herself spending more time in New Haven and enjoying its coffee shops, museums, and small businesses.
“When I came up with this idea, I knew New Haven was the spot for this,” she said.
With the help of her dad, she found the “gem” storefront located at 340 Orange St.
Customers Kimberly Habasinski and Emily Hoda pick up Strawberry Shortcake smoothies with dog Lily.
Stepien worked as a EMT and CNA before opening her own business. During her first year of high school she was unexpectedly placed in a bio-medicine class, which was different from her interest in business at the time.
“I got put into the opposite of what I liked,” she said. “Instead of learning business, I was taking blood samples and dissecting mice.”
Once enrolling at the University of Connecticut (UConn) in 2016, Stepien majored in bimolecular science for three years.
As she neared graduation in her junior year, Stepien was in a car accident that brought her to decide to change her life course to “chase doing something you look forward to everyday.”
She changed her major to communications and media. She is on track to graduate this May.
In addition to her EVVO business, she has started a digital marketing job, in which she focuses on content creation, social media management, paid ads, and analytics.
French Toast smoothie ingredients.
Stepien has been a vegan since she was 16, at a time when “almost every young person was watching Netflix documentaries about holistic health.”
After jumping into the vegan lifestyle cold turkey, Stepien said, she immediately felt better physically and mentally.
“When on a plant-based diet, I didn’t need 20 coffees a day anymore, because I always energized,” she said.
In the summer Stepien uses her fresh garden produce for the cafe ingredients.
Stepien shows off local artist prints sold in EVVO.
The name EVVO came to Stepien as a rendition of “evolve.” “The last two years of my life have just been a huge evolution,” she said.
While in school Stepien has done freelance work in social media marketing for yoga studios and health cafes. This helped her to create EVVO’s instagram and website.
Stepien’s hope is for the cafe to be not only a heath food spot but a safe space for her two student employees and customers to have healthy conversations and find creativity.
“We’re here to optimize everyone’s potential,” she said.
Stepien is looking to hire a third student employee by March.
Stepien got help putting her shop together from her dad, who does home improvement work. When customers enter, they are greeted by Eve the golden butterfly, which was painted by artist Natalia Ramirez.
The most recent additions to Stepien’s menu of more than ten superfood smoothies is the Mint Cacao, a green concoction with healthful fats and herbs.
She hopes to soon add salad and smoothie bowls to the menu next.
The menu also includes gluten-free sourdough that can be topped with avocado, nut butter, herbs and chia seeds.
Stepien offers juice cleanse regiments for customers to do two, three day or week long juice cleanses.
She also sells baked goods made locally. Deliveries of the fresh muffins and banana breads are made every Wednesday.
The cafe has also recently introduced Cross Culture Kombucha to its menu.
Stepien with Eve the butterfly.
Kudos on starting this business!
I'm just a little confused, is she marketing smoothies with whey protein powder as vegan? They definitely aren't (and some vegans also don't do bee products, but that's not as glaring an issue.)