Today we’d like to introduce you to Tammy Stokes.
Tammy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Growing up, I spent my summer’s living in California with my father. Oh, how I loved the West Coast lifestyle! I enjoyed shopping with my stepmom at the Farmer’s Markets, helping cook and plan healthy dinners, riding my bike down the beach, stopping to get a fresh carrot juice and going on canyon hikes. This was the lifestyle that made me feel so happy and I was very influenced by it. When I was 16 years old, I started teaching “aerobics” at my local health and racket club. People loved my classes and how I infused wellness lessons into my workouts inspiring them to live healthy and be happy. I continued to build my skills and knowledge. I studied nutrition in college and continued to teach fitness. When I left LA and moved to Atlanta, I saw a void in the caliber of wellness offerings. I saw it as an opportunity to open a Lifestyle Fitness studio and I dedicated it to the lifestyle I loved.
West Coast Workout has been serving the Atlanta community for over 10 years. A few years after opening the studios, I wrote a book, Live Your Healthiest Life, A West Coast Approach To Living Life In Balance to serve as a manual for a 360-degree approach to wellness. Health is holistic and includes your mindset, diet, hydration, activity and the daily celebration of life. This practice fills your days with joy and turns ordinary days into extraordinary. Even though they read the book which included over 65 of my favorite recipes, I saw my client’s biggest struggles were still with food. There was a lack of healthy food options and people became easily confused by diet trends and fads. There was a need and now Cafe West Express serves the community nutrient dense, delicious, whole foods that are healthy and convenient. It has been a beautiful, organically grown, journey of wellness.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When we decided to open a brick and mortar location, we approached it with unbridled enthusiasm. We were extremely anxious to get started and wanted to get our Cafe up and running as fast as possible. Then, reality set in. Everything took longer than we thought… finding the right place, getting our architectural drawings, closing on the lease, getting permits, working through the build-out and on and on. . . However, we kept our focus and stayed determined. We knew that we had the right concept and amazing food to share with the community. Our perseverance and positive attitude paid off; on April 4, we opened our doors and started the next exciting chapter on our journey.
Cafe West Express – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Cafe West Express is a healthy eating cafe and an e-commerce fresh, soup company. We focus on plant rich foods rooted in the conviction that the intense nourishment they provide restores health, raises happiness and improves the performance of the human body. We serve healthy food with a happy experience and celebrate life each day, along the way.
We are proud to serve the healthiest soups on the planet. They are low in sodium, rich in flavor, high in fiber and packed with antioxidants. We don’t know of another company that offers fresh soups with a nutritional profile as powerful as ours.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Each day we receive feedback from our cafe customers or letters from our online community of life-changing benefits from our foods. Some of them might be what you would expect like weight loss, greater energy, better complexion, but many of them are related to lasting health and happiness effects in their personal lives. We cannot think of anything that makes us more proud than that!
Contact Info:
- Address: 3792 Roswell Road
- Website: cafewestexpress.com
- Phone: 404-800-5379
- Email: info@cafewestexpress.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cafewestexpress/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CafeWestExpress
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cafe-west-express-atlanta
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
