Second Rooted Wellness Bar opens in St Andrew
Published:Thursday | June 26, 2025 | 12:09 AMShanel Lemmie/Staff Reporter
Lifestyle brands geared towards naturopathic medicine have always played an important role in the Jamaican market and have seen a noticeable uptick in popularity. Capitalising on the success of their brand Organica, founders Krishna and Abbi-Gaye Phillipps have partnered with local lifestyle personality and Kamila’s Kitchen restaurateur Kamila McDonald to launch the Rooted Wellness Bar.
Tucked into the back of Organica Whole Foods store in Orchid Village Plaza in Liguanea, St Andrew, the bar acts almost like a wellness speak-easy providing juices, teas and smoothies meant to heal you from the inside. It’s the second location for the health food store, with the first opening at the brand’s Upper Waterloo Road location and three more locations set to roll out in the coming months.
When asked what prompted the decision to open the storefront, Abbi-Gaye Phillipps told Food, “we listen to our customers and our customers wanted us to open a juice bar. Now we just could not open a regular juice bar, it had to have a purpose. Every drink on this menu has a purpose, so it is a functional juicer. Each of the ingredients are selected and combined to create some kind of outcome.”
So far, the menu has three sections: juices powered by plants, teas rooted in wellness and smoothies blended with benefits.
While ingredients include local produce that would be typical of any smoothie or juice bar, Rooted has also included some trademarks of the wellness space that might be daunting to a naturopathy virgin like camu powder, monk fruit and ashwagandha.
“If you look at the menu and you look at the ingredients,” Abbi-Gaye Phillipps explained, “you’re going to see ingredients that you’re probably not even sure what they are and wonder how is it that we’ve combined these ingredients and have it taste good.”
Indicative of their offerings the lion order smoothie has emerged as the best-seller. Its ingredients include coconut milk, Organica-packaged whole almonds, soursop pulp, bananas, date syrup, Organica-packaged raw pumpkin seeds, Navitas maca powder, Cadia chia seeds, Sasha Dee moringa powder, Irish moss and Organica-packaged Ceylon cinnamon.
Praising their partner in development, McDonald, Abbi-Gaye Phillipps explained that she was in the trenches configuring flavour-profiles herself.
“Choosing a partner like Kamila was great. We’ve worked together before, and it just seemed like the right thing to do. She has come on board and actually curated most of the smoothies drinks, and teas.”
McDonald already offers some smoothies and juices at the various locations of her vegan-based restaurant Kamila’s Kitchen.
Though Organica Whole Foods has garnered praise in the wellness community with their second location having been launched just over seven months ago, their existence in the wider society is a well-kept secret. Abbi-Gaye Phillipps explained that their goal is to bring the gospel of wellness to across the 14 parishes.
“I would say we have something for everybody. We have something for the kids, the men, the women. People deal with different lifestyle illnesses, like blood pressure, stress, blood sugar [problems]. Now, we’re not saying you’re not gonna go to the doctor and take your medication. But it’s supposed to be food that helps to support your lifestyle.”
“[W]e are partnering with different nutritionists and different persons in the wellness space to try and get it out there. We are very excited to really just get wellness to the average person. I don’t care if you want to come in and spend $200 or if you want to come in and spend more... . We have different price points for all of the different wellness ingredients that we are hoping people will buy into. We push a lot of information on our social media page, not about products but just about how to live a healthier lifestyle. So we are big on educating,” she continued.
Packaging their ideology she said, “We see ourself playing a very significant role in just enlightening Jamaicans about health and wellness and the importance of food and nutrition, and hopefully making it more accessible to [Jamaicans].”