Lewiston Live Well aims to please

by jmaloni

Thu, Aug 29th 2024 12:30 pm

Left of Center with Joshua Maloni

The first thing customers will notice when walking into Lewiston Live Well might be the artwork on the lounge walls, the comic books on the shelf, or the rows of CD jackets above the prep area. But the lasting imprints they’ll leave with are the attention to detail, desire to be customizable, and creativity shown by Emily Foltz and Andrew Boudeman.

Partners in life and in business, the two set out to change perceptions about clean consumption and how food establishments should treat patrons.

Their vehicle for change is Lewiston Live Well, which opened at the very end of June at 155 Portage Road. The site, formerly a computer repair store and then a real estate office, now serves protein shakes, energy drinks, smoothies, bubble tea, coffee, bagels and acai bowls.

“I feel like a lot of people just kind of have various assumptions. And I always tell people, ‘If you have questions, just ask.’ We're very, very easygoing; very nice people; and we love to talk; and we love to make friends,” Foltz said. “We are more than willing to answer any and all questions people may have. And I think a lot of people may be just timid and may not want to ask if there's this or there's that. But just don't be shy. Always ask.”

She explained, “I teach all of my employees to be very kind. That’s my main focus is customer service. I feel like everyone feels really comfortable here, and we all get very close. I use the term ‘customers’ lightly, because everyone that comes in here, I mean, we've made friends with everyone. That's how we want it to be.”

To that end, friends wouldn’t serve friends junk, right?

Foltz’s first jobs included stints at popular chains, where “I loved what I did,” and “I enjoyed making all the drinks, all the customer service.”

At the time, “I was in med school, and I wanted to be a surgeon, but then my mind kind of just shifted and I didn't want to do that anymore,” she said. “I shadowed my first surgery, and then I'm like, ‘I can't do this’ (laughs). I could not handle it. But my boyfriend and I, we were like, ‘We really love doing this.’ We wanted to open up stores, make it our own, make it better.

“I still study holistic medicine. So, I was trying to implement some sort of healthy, fun concept, which is this, and try to use cleaner products – which we do – but it's also very difficult with the market. You’ve got to find stuff that tastes good, looks good, and isn't full of toxic stuff.

“There was a lot of trial and error. I had to essentially build this from the ground up and make it our own.”

Prior to starting in Lewiston, Foltz, 23, and Boudeman, 24, opened LKPT Energy House (Lockport) and Broadway Nutrition (Lancaster). They also have a colorful food truck, which locals will see on Peach Festival weekend.

“We used to use a lot of different products,” in being naturopathic or holistic, and “we were struggling to find stuff that tasted good, didn't have a ton of fillers in it – and something that was really important to me was that it was third-party tested,” Foltz said. “Because that's kind of the issue, is what everyone consumes on a daily basis has a lot of toxins, heavy metals, and that can lead to a lot of disease and disorder. So, I did a lot of research, because I said, ‘The product we're using now, I don't like it. There's too much in it, and I want to find something better.’

“I found Naked protein. It has three ingredients in it. It's third-party tested. I remember one night, I was like, ‘We have to come up with new recipes. We have to just throw a bunch of stuff in a blender, hope it tastes good, and go from there.’ And that's what I did. It took me all day and all night. A lot of it was good; a lot of it wasn't. So, we kind of figured out what worked.”

Lewiston Live Well’s menu includes shakes where “the base of it is the Naked protein,” Foltz said. “It's definitely the consistency of a milkshake. I'll tell people that they're protein shakes, but a lot of the times, like children, when they get them, they're like, ‘Oh, I don't want a protein shake.’ But I'm like, ‘Trust me: They taste like milkshakes.’ ”

Thanks to her past employment, Foltz said she “had a really good idea as to what flavors would be good in what, and what you could add to make the texture thicker.

“The main thing was making sure there wasn't fillers, because a lot of proteins have something that's called xanthan gum, and that's a thickening agent, and it can cause a lot of inflammation in the body.”

Foltz and Boudeman serve bubble tea, and “I always start off by saying every store does it differently,” she said. “We just have fun names and flavors, but it's very customizable. We have a lot of people that are like, ‘I just want strawberry tea and bubbles.’ And I'm like, ‘That's fine.’ We are very accommodating.

“Bubble tea, you can have a base tea, any flavor you want. We just have fun names of flavors that we sell a lot of, and you can have bursting bubbles or tapioca pearls.”

When it comes to coffee, “The macros, which is the nutritional content, is phenomenal,” Foltz said. At other places, “The coffee sits out all day. Brewing – not a fan. You just don't get as much caffeine. And I don't think a lot of people understand that. A lot of trial and error with that, but I found the brand Javy Coffee. We use their protein coffee.

“Essentially, all of our coffees are made as a protein coffee. You don't have to have protein in it, but I recommend it, because you get the protein, and more caffeine, and it's good. A lot of people have come back in and told me that they like my coffee better than Starbucks or Tim Hortons.”

She noted, “It's simple, and it's filling. If you get a protein coffee, you're getting 25 grams of protein. So, essentially, it's going to fill people up and give them the caffeine that they need.”

When serving customers, Lewiston Live Well strives to tailor each offering.

Foltz said, “A majority of our things already are gluten-free. It's just very dependent on the person. Because I found that a good example is, along with gluten-free, people are lactose-intolerant, or they can't have milk. I'll ask people specifically – almost every single time someone new comes in – I'll ask them if they have an allergy or a sensitivity at all. Sometimes people will say, ‘Oh, well, I can't have milk.’ But then I'll ask them, ‘OK, we use whey. Does that bother you?’ Sometimes they'll say, ‘No, that's fine.’ So, it's very person-specific.”

Boudeman emphasized, “We really do make it a big point to try to have us, or whoever's working behind the bar, individualize what it is we're making for the customer. So that's why, like Emily said, we just make sure we double-check. ‘Oh, hey, do you have any sensitivities? Do you have anything that you can't have? If you can't have gluten, that's fine. We can make our shakes that are already premade separate from what we already have.’

“We're very accommodating in regards to that, just because, like we said before, with the ingredients that we are very picky about, we already know the customers are picky themselves, and they like what they like; or they're limited in their diet, lifestyle, whatever the case may be. So, we just try to be as accommodating as possible."

“People love that, they appreciate that,” Foltz said. ‘They're like, ‘Wow, I've never been asked that before.’ Well, you kind of should; it should be normalized.”