The Roxy Restaurant on 101 and D Street in Encinitas, CA
In the following post, staff writer Kathryn Wells recounts her interview with restauranteur and trend-setter, Shoja Naimi, who is celebrating 31 years of success as the owner of the Roxy Restaurant in Encinitas, CA, and has just added alkaline water to his list of drink offerings. Naimi’s latest addition to his menu, purified alkaline water, places the Roxy Restaurant on the forefront of a new health trend to combat poor quality drinking water and the ill effects of acidic lifestyles.
A Recipe for Success
Perched in the heart of Encinitas on the corner of So. Coast Highway and D Street, the Roxy Restaurant has been serving loyal customers for over 30 years. One of the secrets to its success is, no doubt, in their delicious, healthy, vegetarian menu, which has been getting consistently positive reviews on local social networking sites, like Yelp.com. Many reviewers rave about his famous Falafel burgers and fresh, vegetarian entrees. Locals from all over San Diego and tourists alike are drawn to the hip, Mediterranean-style restaurant only blocks away from Moonlight Beach, and local foot traffic keeps Naimi’s restaurant busy all year long. “Encinitas is a wonderful town. The atmosphere and energy is something different. I don’t know what it is. It’s just home,” says, the owner of the Roxy, Shoja Naimi.
The spicy aroma of tarragon and pungent odors of garlic waft from the kitchen. Guests arrive for lunch, opting for the busier bar area. We take a seat in the quieter section of the restaurant by the tropical aquarium in the south wing of his restaurant to chat about the ongoing success of his restaurant. I congratulate Shoja on the continued success of his business, and ask him about the last 30 years.
“This month we are celebrating our 31st anniversary. We came here to this corner of Encinitas as an ice cream shop, and expanded to a restaurant, and we just kept growing.”
The Roxy Restaurant Adds Ionizer to Drink Menu
Apart from more than quadrupling the square footage of his establishment, Naimi continues to expand his menu. One example of such an expansion is in plain view on his espresso bar. “People always ask me, what is that machine on your counter?” says Naimi. Roughly the size of a shoebox, with a brightly lit LED display and sleek silver and black housing, this machine looks like something out of a futuristic kitchen.
Life Ionizer® in Roxy Restaurant
“‘It’s a water ionizer,’ I tell them. It’s the future.”
It isn’t just a healthy, delicious menu and hippy-Mediterranean décor, friendly staff and strategic location that have been Naimi’s recipe for success; it’s also that Naimi keeps an open mind about trying new things—like alkaline water from an ionizer—to meet the healthy demands of his guests. In this case, Naimi is offering purified alkaline drinking water to customers, a natural fit for Naimi’s forward-thinking, mostly-vegetarian clientele. Most of them have already heard about an ionizer, or they already understand the positive results from drinking alkaline water.
One of those loyal customers turned out later to be the man that put an ionizer in the restaurant, Rick H. Cabados. “I knew Rick Cabados for many years before he started Life Ionizer®. He was a strict vegetarian and has been coming in to my restaurant to eat here 2-to-3 times a week with his wife and his little boys—even when they were living all the way down in San Diego.”
Cabados is the CEV of Life Ionizer®, a global corporation that manufactures and distributes a line of water ionizers and water filters for the home and for industrial applications.
Naimi’s Introduction to the Ionizer Lifestyle
Naimi credits his first introduction to ionizers to his waitress Windy, who has been working with Naimi for over 18 years. She would always bring a bottle of ionized water from home, he noticed. He also noticed that she only drank her water from that bottle, so he decided to ask her about it one day, marking Naimi’s first introduction to the water ionizer.
Windy walks over to the tables nearby to do some spot cleaning just as Naimi and I are discussing the benefits of acid water. She is a tall woman with a warm, bubbly personality. When I ask her about her experience with her Life Ionizer® 7600, her enthusiasm for the results she has experienced is contagious.
“My mom is really kind of ahead of the whole health food health food thing. For like 30 years, she has been doing research into alternative health practices. She actually bought me a Life Ionizer®, so that’s how I heard about it. I first thought to myself, ‘This is water. What difference could water make?’ But it’s been amazing since we started drinking it.”
Setting the Trend
I ask her if she has noticed the trend that is starting to take off in her area. Without hesitating, Windy tells me, “Well, after I got one, then Shoja got one, and then a couple girls who work here tried the water, and then got one for their family, too. So it’s definitely spreading. [The water] is amazing stuff.”
Windy describes to curious customers the benefits of alkaline water when they ask her about it—which is often. “When she serves customers, she offers them alkaline water with their meal. She can describe all of the benefits to customers, what it does, how to use it apply it at home,” says Naimi—and the response has been very positive.
“I have customers bring their water bottles in from home to fill up with alkaline water. They come back again and again. People come in here buying a gallon here and there. Sometimes as a promotion, we give away free alkaline water to our repeat customers.”
Windy is the perfect water ionizer evangelist. Without hesitating, Windy lists off creative ways that she uses alkaline or acid water in her home. “I cook with the alkaline water all the time. I cook my beans with them, and they come out super tender. It’s good stuff. I even carry a little bottle of acid water I keep with me in my purse and I spray my face with it. It’s a wonderful skin toner.”
A Long and Successful History in Alternative Health
With all of its useful trends and health benefits, it’s a wonder why the trend hasn’t been introduced to the United States sooner. The ionizer has been used as a medical device in Korean and Japan for over 40 years, and has been popping up in mainstream holistic health circles for the last decade in the United States and Europe. Part purifier, part electrolysis machine, a water ionizer produces two categories of water: alkaline and acid water. Alkaline drinking water is reported to offer health benefits such as bowel regularity, clearer skin, more energy, faster post-workout recovery time, and is a natural antioxidant. Acid water, is strictly for topical use, and is an excellent skin toner and organic counter-top sanitizer.
Naimi Explaining his Introduction to Ionizers
Naimi himself is now a believer in the practical uses of a water ionizer. He says he uses the acid water from the LIFE 7600 to wash his face in the morning. The cut flowers adorning the tables in the Roxy are watered with acid water, according to Windy. Acid water is a natural skin toner, a fact which Naimi has noticed from using it as aftershave on his own skin. “Besides drinking alkaline water, I use acid water to take home and wash my face, spot-clean my clothes.” He has a small puppy, which he occasionally washes with acid water, making his coat shiny and clean. Moreover, he says, the puppy likes the alkaline water for drinking too!
New customers (and their four-legged friends!) are encouraged to visit the Roxy and ask for Windy or Shoja to discover alkaline water for themselves. One suggested day trip to Encinitas would be to drive to 101 and D Street in Encinitas, sit down, order one of the Roxy’s famous falafel burgers on their outside patio, and follow it up by a stroll along the beach—definitely not a bad way to spend a summer afternoon or evening.
For more information about Life Ionizers, please visit www.LifeIonizers.com or call 7 days a week at 888-688-8889