A healthy stop in the South Bronx
A stroll down South Bronx thoroughfares like the Grand Concourse and Melrose Avenue is sure to offer ample selections of basement-priced gin, Happy Meals, fried chicken buckets and reams of junk food courtesy of the bodegas located on nearly every corner.
But thanks to a newly opened and first-for-the-area health food restaurant, residents of one of New York City’s most unhealthy neighborhoods now have the option of dining on mixed green salads and sugarless organic peanut butter — dishes more traditionally associated with Washington Square Park than Walton Avenue.
The PEACELOVE health food store opened its doors on Aug. 21, making it the first health food restaurant in the South Bronx, an area that has the highest rate of obesity and diabetes in the city. Located just two blocks from the 3rd Avenue subway stop at 149th Street, the restaurant is piggybacking on the efforts of the South Bronx Food Coop (SBxFC) that also opened shop this year.
“It’s not that the people of the South Bronx don’t want this; they do," said Darada David, the founder of PEACELOVE. "It’s that they are so used to the McDonald’s and the 99 cent stores. It’s all they know. And so you become conditioned. I don’t think the community is unaware. It’s just that there are no other options.”
A new outlook on eating for the area known as New York City’s last frontier couldn’t come at a more pressing time.
According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s most recent statistics – compiled in 2008 – the South Bronx is the city neighborhood with the highest rate of diabetes. The 17 percent tally is nearly double the city average of 10 percent.
Weight data tells the same story. South Bronx’s obesity rate stands at around 25 percent, a statistic that makes it among the most overweight neighborhoods in the city along with central Brooklyn and parts of Harlem.
For PEACELOVE customers, the eatery is filling a previously noticeable void.
“When I used to live in Manhattan I had so many places like this one, and now we’ve got it here," said Ed Garcia, 36, a South Bronx native who moved back to the area after Sept. 11. Everything around here is so unhealthy. Even the Spanish restaurants. They have so little that won’t kill you. So it’s nice to not have to make this on your own.”
PEACELOVE’s aisles are filled with roasted red pepper-infused vegetable sandwiches, tuna wraps and gourmet salads – provided by the Kosher food distributor Yummy, and paid for by David herself.
PEACELOVE offers organic coffee and other homemade goodies, including her favorite dish: homemade sweet potato pie, whose sweetness, David assures, only comes from the tuber itself.
Prices range from $4 to $6 for most of the meals.
“People walk by here and say ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this,' ” said Chris Gatlin, a South Bronx resident who says he eats twice a week at the restaurant. “This is a neighborhood people don’t leave to eat. They go downstairs and eat a hamburger. Now they come here and say they think they are in Manhattan.”
The store’s interior, which can hold 50 people, is equal parts rustic lodge, highway sandwich store and basement music studio. The eating area is a duplex set-up filled with non-descript white plastic table sets. The eating space can only be reached after passing through a scene straight out of your local Bohemian coffee shop, featuring an all-purpose coffee counter, expresso machine included. The restaurant promises to take on a variety of other roles as well, and offers Internet through three desktop computers. And set off to the side of the food counter is a small stage for regular jazz performances, which take place on the weekends.
“This is like having downtown uptown,” said Rahn Burton, a jazz musician who signed on to perform at PEACELOVE on the weekends. “This is about changing attitudes. The typical thing for the area is to open a bodega. And so many people are discouraging. Even our construction workers told us we’d be better off opening a liquor store with those glass windows — as if we were animals.”
For David, obstacles overcome have extended beyond blazing a new culinary trail. Having left the fashion industry, the young entrepreneur was forced to foot the bill on her own.
She says all her applications for loans from banks were rejected, from both the multinational Chase to the local credit union.
The lenders, however, may find themselves on the wrong end of a new wave hitting the South Bronx.
PEACELOVE’s opening comes seven months after the debut of the first permanent South Bronx Food Cooperative (SBxFC), which is modeled after the hailed Park Slope Food Coop.
The Coop, which is located on the corner of 158th and Third Avenue, went full-scale as a seven-day-a-week operation after operating as a part-time club without a home since 2006.
“Since we’ve been here, local grocery markets now offer organic produce,” said Zena Nelson, the coop’s founder. “You do the math.”
But for David, of PEACELOVE, which has already launched plans to cooperate with the SBxFC, the movement is about much more than a hearty meal.
“Every neighborhood deserves a little peace and love,” she said.
