๐ HEALTHY eating never looked so good ๐คค Mercer Island's organic cafe
0At Sano Cafe on Mercer Island, you can always find something fresh, organic, and unique.
Avocado toast and acai bowls are the most popular. But owner Lisa Nordstrom mixes things up on the menu with unique salads, smoothies, and bowls.
"I like to eat. So let's make it easy!" Nordstrom said. "It doesn't have to be complicated."
Sano is a nod to Lisa's Italian heritage. It means "healthy". And one of her goals is to remove the barriers that prevent people from eating better.
In addition to the cafe menu, Sano offers clean meal plans. It's a day's worth of healthy food packaged to take home.
Nordstrom is especially proud of her granola because that's how her foray into the food business started.
She had been a stay-at-home mom for 16 years and decided to try to solve one of her daily frustrations.
"I was so tired of buying all those granola bars on the market and I was trying to create something to do with them," Nordstrom said.
So she created the Sano Bar and together, with the help of her three daughters, it became a family business.
The bar is dairy and gluten-free and made with ingredients like amaranth, chia, and pea protein.
Four years after that launch, they decided to expand the brand into a cafe. Her three daughters were with her all the way.
"Not everyone can say they live with their kids, they work with their kids. It's not always perfect, but it's fun and I wanted them to learn about healthy ingredients," Nordstrom explained.
Her daughter, Julia, who is now in college, still helps out in the cafe when she can and has great memories of the journey.
"I had just turned 16 and we were doing grocery runs, constantly together. If we weren't home, we were here. It brought us all closer," Julia shared.
Sano cafe is open seven days a week and Lisa hopes to eventually expand into other Pacific Northwest communities.