Raj Tewani believes food is the most powerful tool we have to take care of our health.
Along with his wife, Jyoti, the couple are co-founders of Root2Rise https://www.root2riseny.com, a four-year-old full-service café, bakery and cold-pressed juice bar in Pleasantville, open morning to night for breakfast lunch, and dinner. The Tewanis are fully invested in Pleasantville: They have lived there since 1989, raising their kids in the community.
In October 2024, the two opened a second café, in Larchmont, where the menu is based on global comfort foods. While Indian-inspired, the menu has dishes to suit every palate, they said. And with the addition of a full bar, diners can enjoy hand-crafted cocktails, organic wines and clean spirits that pair particularly well with the dishes. Root2Rise also does takeout and catering orders.
The inspiration for the name comes from one of the first foundations of yoga – to connect deeply with the earth through one’s body – so it’s no surprise to learn that Jyoti Tewani is a dedicated yogi. She told the Westfair Business Journal that she and her husband had opened the Larchmont location, because within a year of launching the Pleasantville site they were getting “relentless” requests to open in other towns.
She herself graduated with a degree in math and physics from Kanpur University in India and continued her education at Manhattan’s Institute for Integrative Nutrition before going on to the borough’s Natural Gourmet Institute, where she focused on food and its direct connection to health.
Jyoti said she has always loved cooking and feeding her family and had even taken cooking classes in summer vacations during her school days. Her husband supported that passion, she added: “Raj helped my dream come true when we built our first Root2Rise location in Pleasantville.”
Everything in both stores is vegan, gluten-free, organic, 100% plant-based and locally sourced. The Root2Rise menu contains no processed ingredients, no preservatives, no refined sugars and no cheap oils, and its baked goods, juices and smoothies are made fresh daily in-house.
But commenting on the challenges of opening the new location, Jyoti said, “It’s never easy for small businesses, especially in Westchester, as the county has so many regulations and permits with the health department and town.”
Quizzed about the American diet and why it is generally still so poor, despite the fixation with “healthy” eating, Jyoti was quick to express her view:
“Food is medicine. Food is information to our cells. For such a wealthy nation, we could eat better. We need to teach our families and children to eat and cook for nourishment and healing. Food needs to be a priority.”
With the rise in food allergies, she said, “At Root2Rise, we are very open and transparent about the ingredients that we use, and our staff is trained to not take anything lightly, because some allergens can be life threatening.”
Food illnesses that tend to run in families — like Celiac disease, an immune reaction to gluten — also need to be addressed, she added.
Asked if, given her own background, she saw her role as in any way educational, Jyoti said that she was grateful to have the opportunity to make a difference in bringing awareness to people about what it means to eat healthy.”
Root2Rise holds cooking classes throughout the year that address chronic inflammation and how to prevent disease through our food choices. Jyoti said customers love to hang around after these classes and share their experiences with food issues and health.
And when, finally, we put it to her that she was in a competitive field as a purveyor and promoter of healthy eating, and asked her how she stood out to “rise” above the competition, she replied that her only competitor was herself.
“Every day I want to do better than the day before. There’s no such thing as getting complacent in this food business. I’m 58 years old and I cannot rest until I have this mission spread everywhere there is fast food.”
And she went on: “If fast food restaurants can be everywhere, why can’t Root2Rise?”
