Can a Seventh-Day Adventist run a food business and be successful? Jeremy shares how he pulled it off.

Bite Size Talks 2017

<p>Can a Seventh-Day Adventist run a food business and be successful? Jeremy shares how he pulled it off.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

ASI Pacific Union

Jeremy Williams

Running a Food Business as a Seventh-Day Adventist

My name is Jeremy, and my wife and I, we opened Vegan Corner back in 2009.

For those of you who don't know where that is, that's near Loma Linda.

So when we opened Vegan Corner back in 2009, we weren't doing any vegan or healthy dishes or anything in that direction whatsoever.

We were actually serving pepperoni and pork and dairy and you name it, everything that's not the healthiest.

So let me go back a little bit before we get to that point.

Just so you know, I don't have a presentation or a slideshow or anything fancy, so I'm just gonna wing it.

I didn't have time, It's been a busy, busy week for me.

So I'm just going to give you a little history and where we got to, where we are now, who I am, who my wife is.

So back in 2009, we opened up Vegan Corner, like I said.

And we had no intentions of doing any type of health food or anything.

We had a prior place before that where we did have some vegan options, and that's kind of where it started from.

Now it's based out of Moreno Valley, California.

And our, back in, I'd say about a year after we opened, so maybe 2010, we started incorporating a vegan menu.

And that started really gradually, really slow.

So we started adding a couple things here and there to the point where we got a full vegan menu going.

I don't remember exactly how long it took to get that going, but It wasn't too long after that.

So from there, we started doing pretty much everything we were doing non-vegan.

And it wasn't until, I'd say, around 2015 is when we went all vegan.

And I had gotten to a point where I decided to go vegan myself, and that was back in, say 2014 I'd say.

And the reason why I went vegan because I was just tired of feeling sick and tired so I Decided to make a change in my eating habits and not just my eating habits I mean I had a pretty bad habits across the board.

I mean I was really bad you guys would be like oh but we'll just say I mean my diet consisted of you know waking up in the morning and smoking a few cigarettes and pounding back a few Monsters or Red Bulls and popping a couple pain pills and, you know, that was my breakfast.

And I got to a point where that obviously started, my life started going down pretty quickly.

And my relationship was going down the drain.

So we got to a point where I was finally at a point where I asked God into my life.

And he gave me victory over all the bad habits that I had.

And so that's where we got to then, or where we are now, is because of that.

And pretty much when I went vegan, the next step was to go vegan with a restaurant, right?

Like, how are you going to be vegan and be, you know, wanting to teach health and wanting to get yourself healthier, but then serving everybody else this horrible stuff?

So don't get me wrong, we're not the healthiest place at all.

We're not, Oasis Cafe is much healthier than we are.

But, and they have great food by the way.

But my point is that we're like a transitional food.

So where people can come, they can get some of the same stuff they're eating now, but a healthier version of it.

So rather than getting a hamburger with all the animal fat, all the disease in it, you guys know, it's a place where you can come and still get a good tasting burger without all that bad stuff in it or less bad stuff in it.

And then from there, the idea definitely would be to transition into a healthier diet.

And that's actually a direction that we would like to go with the restaurant is taking it to where we can offer some healthier options.

They went all organic, and that's awesome.

So a little bit about pretty much where we are right now is we're actually trying to do also a ministry through our business and that's the bigger picture here.

I know this is about faith and food, right?

So our purpose is is that we want to serve the Lord in everything we do.

And when I gave my life to God, I decided to give myself wholly to him and everything I have, my business, everything.

So the direction we're going now is we want to do everything we do to glorify God.

And that was the main reason we stopped serving animal products.

So, there's so many ways we can go with this.

Right now, what we're trying to do is, like I said, the next step is to go pretty much get rid of the organics.

I'm sorry, not get rid of it, but implement it.

Let me go back a little bit and kind of tell you a little bit about my background.

Like I grew up in a somewhat of a Christian home a little bit and my wife she also had a little bit of a background.

We actually both of our families had a, were Adventists, and but we when we met we didn't know anything about God at all whatsoever.

I mean, as far as like our lives, we were just in the world completely and, you know, just trying to make a dollar, basically.

So, But when I gave my life to God, we both made a decision that we wanted to run our business to glorify God.

You know, I actually don't have a whole lot more to say, actually, right now, to be honest with you.

It actually would be great to take any questions that anybody has to ask.

Like I said, I'm just so tired right now.

And if anybody has any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer any questions.

Does anybody have any questions that they want to ask?

Where is your restaurant located in Colton?

Right, so we're over off of downtown, north side of the 10 freeway.

So in between Rancho Avenue and La Cadena.

I don't know if you're familiar, about 7 blocks north of Valley Boulevard.

Is this the same shopping center as State of Brunswick?

So State of Brunswick is on La Cadena and Valley.

So if you were to go up La Cadena and then make a left on West Olive Street, we'd be right there on the right-hand side.

The moment you pass over, the moment you pass over, there are train tracks.

I'm not sure if you answered this already, but I know that I visited the place before and you guys show Adventist literature and everything.

So I guess what led you to that whole process of, you know, now that you are a food business, like from that process of you said before you weren't that you weren't as active in church, but then now you're putting like advertising, I guess, and witnessing at your business now.

So how did you go through that process exactly?

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Running a Food Business as a Seventh-Day Adventist

Transcript

Description

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