Have you ever stepped out of Widener Library for a study break at Pinocchio’s only to find the scarfed-down meal slows you down? The collaborators at Life Alive Organic Café and Down Under School of Yoga are determined to keep your energy ignited. Their first-ever collaboration, Wellness Oasis, which opened at 22 John F. Kennedy Street on March 1st, strives to turn our intellectual mecca into a spiritual hub. According to Life Alive’s CEO Bryan Timko, their mission is rooted in an essential tenet: “how we eat, move, and think influences how we feel.”
Having graduated from Harvard Business School in 2002, Timko knows how Harvard Square ticks and how to amplify its energy. “The people who are here create an intellectual center not just for Massachusetts but also in the world,” he says.
With five other locations in Massachusetts, Live Alive serves its visitors with vegan and vegetarian meals as healthy and vibrant as the space itself; their signature rainbow motif is evident even in the colorful details of each dish. Life Alive targets 40% of the American population who define themselves as flexitarians, a new term to describe those who primarily choose vegetarian options but cannot avoid the occasional temptation of the juicy Tasty Burger cheeseburger. Timko describes the café as a “spa for [his] insides.”
Diners boast about feeling better after a meal at Life Alive. Alma Russell ’25 appreciates Live Alive’s vegan-vegetarian menu inspiring everyone–beyond flexitarians–to have a more vegetable and fruit based diet for their own health benefits as well as environmental reasons. As a vegan herself, Russell said, “I love seeing a menu where dairy is a marked option rather than the other way around. It’s much more inclusive and the food tasted the same and better to all my non-vegan friends.”
Timko partnered with Justine Cohen, Founder and Director of the Down Under School of Yoga, to incorporate movement and thinking into the space. Originating in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, Down Under mixes classical and cutting edge yoga techniques in their teacher-focused movement program with an emphasis on meditation and wellness.
Mary Cipperman exemplified the success of the collaboration’s emphasis on eating, thinking, and moving. “[My friends and I] found that [the Wellness Oasis] was a trendy and comfortable place to get work done, exercise, or grab food. The bottom floor is particularly comfortable with lofi music and soft lighting…we also loved their açaí bowls, latte options, and healthy lunches. Overall, we had a great experience and plan to return!” she said.
Cohen was pleasantly surprised about how naturally the two health centers meshed. During opening weekend, Down Under offered free yoga classes to all visitors, and Cohen received compliments about the natural flow between her studio and the café. “I was teaching during the opening weekend and there was this lovely buzz,” she shares. “It was like going to sleep with the sound of a party in the living room… All of the students came out to smell the aromas. Three people coincidently ended up in the same yoga class and stayed to share a meal together afterwards.”
This Harvard Square location holds a large section of the café and one of the two movement studios on the ground level. A colorful mantra is emblazoned on the stairwell to the bottom floor: “To energize the vitality of all living beings on the planet.” In the downstairs Blue Lounge, eager Harvard students monopolize the new study space, Life Alive bowls in one hand and laptops in the other. The rainbow arsenal of the spices exemplified in every dish compliments the lavender aromas and staple beautiful blue atmosphere of Down Under.
Down Under seeks to tackle issues of equality and race within the yogi community by increasing black teacher participation in fitness areas and treating teachers better than the minimal basic level for health and fitness instructors. Diminishing the racial gap in the fitness industry, Ashley Mitchell, one of the studio’s most popular instructors, spent her career working as a racial activist leader. Down Under treats all of their 80 teachers scattered over five locations as employees, offering sick days, maternity leave, and access to healthcare—unusual benefits for fitness instructors. Cohen aims to set a standard of treatment for its teachers and be on the frontline of increasing diversity in this field.
Likewise, Culinary Director Leah Debois rewards her team with the benefits of the Wellness Oasis; all Life Alive employees are offered great discounts on yoga as well as an initial two weeks of free classes. “They love to have the access to be able to slip out of work and slip straight into a class,” Debois explains.
To celebrate the opening, the Wellness Oasis offered the Happiness Sabbatical: two months of free food from Life Alive and free yoga and meditation for Down Under granted to the four selected of 300 applicants. Seeking to improve community wellness, the program also offers one-on-one meetings with nutritionists as well as counseling on stress and anxiety. Throughout the eight weeks, each winner will wear an Oura Ring, a wearable sleep and activity tracker. The rest of the applicants have been gifted a wellness immersion for a month of unlimited yoga, meditation, fitness and more.
This wellness collaboration extends from shared ideals to dishes. Debois celebrates the connection between sleep, vibrancy, and energy through diet. During her seven years at Life Alive, Debois has applied her classic culinary background to vegan-vegetarian cuisine to compose dishes like the highly popular Buddha Bowl. A joint product of Down Under and Life Alive, the bowl is “reflective of the Life Alive pantry that celebrates the spices that get that digestive fire going,” says Debois. “A combination of raw and cooked vegetables, and some jalapenos on top, … gives some good energy in there with some good proteins like almonds and avocados,” she adds. “It was supposed to be a seasonal dish but people seem to love it, so it is staying on the menu.”
The wholesome energy propagates through the location down to even the finest details like the names of the dishes. Charlotte Baker ’24 suggests, “Spice up your ordering experience by choosing a smoothie or salad based on the names—for instance, I love requesting a Love Child or Forbidden Kale. Kale tastes so much better when it’s not allowed.”
Eliza Kimball ’25 (elizakimball@college.harvard.edu) wrote this article sitting in Live Alive’s Blue Lounge with their Blue Magic smoothie in hand.