A BRIEF HISTORY
Follow Your Heart opened in 1970 with the idea to create and share delicious vegetarian food with our community. What started as a seven-seat food bar has now evolved into a vegan grocers, natural wellness store, eclectic gift shop, and award-winning plant-based café.
Our story began in 1970.
It was a time to start something revolutionary…
1970: Year of the first Earth Day. The Jackson 5 are introduced on American Bandstand. Let It Be is released. Midnight Cowboy wins best picture. Vietnam protests around the world. The Beatles break up. Grateful Dead perform their first gig in the UK. Stonewall Riots occur in NYC. Elton John performs his first gig in the states. Voting Rights Act is signed to allow voting at the age of 18. The Ford Pinto is introduced. The first Glastonbury Festival in the UK. PBS begins. We lose Hendrix and Joplin. The first New York Marathon. The first Monday Night Football. Environmental Protection Agency begins operations.
Grab a Seat at the Bar
We began in the back of a store formerly known as Johnny Weissmuller’s American Natural Foods. A photo of Weissmuller from the Tarzan Films was hung in the store. Tucked in the rear corner of this tiny, 1,300 square-foot health food store was a small J-shaped lunch counter (still in use today) consisting of seven stools, a small electric oven and cooktop, a sink, and a refrigerated sandwich prep table. Having no interest in providing food service, the store’s owner decided to find someone to come in and operate the juice bar as a concession, asking only 10 percent of any money earned. This was the moment of opportunity for 24-year-old Michael Besançon and his partner, Caren Diem. With a meager investment of $250 in cash and 20 books of Green Stamps (which were redeemed for silverware and other kitchen essentials), the pair opened the humble vegetarian sandwich bar, affectionately known by regulars as “Johnny’s.”
Johnny Weissmuller, one of the best competitive olympic swimmers of the 20th century, shown here in one of his film roles as Tarzan.
Regulars waiting for seats to open up at the food bar. Among them the woman standing with her arms crossed is Rachel Berliner who, along with her husband Andy, founded the global vegetarian food company Amy’s Kitchen.
Old records reveal early sales averaging about $7 a day, but before long, word of the good food spread, and customers were lining up to enjoy the 65 cent avocado sandwiches and 20 cent cups of daily homemade soup. As the business grew, Michael was offered the position of manager of the store and hired one of his regular customers, Bob Goldberg, to help run the food bar. At that time, the entire Johnny’s staff consisted of one person running the store, one running the food bar, and a twenty-hour-per-week helper who stocked the shelves.
This menu from 1974 was the earliest edition of the menu we could find, but there were two other prior.
From left to right: Spencer, Bob, Michael, John Barnes (employee) and Paul at the original Owensmouth location.
Bob and Michael in front of the produce aisle.
A Time to Grow
By late 1972, seating capacity had grown to 14 and their little business was booming. Spencer Windbiel and Paul Lewin (long-time friends of Michael and Bob, respectively) were now part of the crew.
A year later, in November of 1973, despite the success of the food bar, the store’s owner decided to put the business up for sale. Michael, Bob, Spencer, and Paul saw their chance and quickly formed a partnership to purchase the store and to combine it with the food bar into a single enterprise. They managed to scrape together the $15,000 needed to do the deal and Follow Your Heart was officially born.
The four partners in front of the original store. From Left to Right: Bob, Spencer, Michael and Paul.
What’s In a Name?
The name Follow Your Heart originally came into usage before the purchase of the store, when the four founders, all vegetarians, began to feel the need to define a separate identity for the food bar, differentiating it from the store which, at the time, still sold meat. The name came from a song title on an album recorded by “The Sons of Champlin.” We all felt that the phrase “Follow Your Heart” accurately described both what we were doing and our beliefs. It was our hope that over the years, the adoption of this name would serve as a reminder to us and our customers of the powerful message it contains.” – Bob Goldberg
Vegetarian Vision
Armed with little capital and a great desire to turn the new venture into a one-of-a-kind experience, we set out to build the best natural foods store and restaurant that we could imagine. Our first act, disregarding strong warnings from people in the “Health Food Industry,” was to eliminate meat, poultry, and fish from the store. We believed then, as we do today, that we could not, in good conscience, make money from the sale of such items. Our hearts told us that eating such foods was neither necessary for the attainment of good health nor good for the planet, and that therefore there was no need for us to carry these products or to contribute to the suffering of living creatures. This, and loving kindness to our brothers and sisters, were the basic principles upon which Follow Your Heart built its foundation.
Time for Transformation & Growth
By 1976, having grown to 22 seats in the food bar, we desperately needed a bigger spot. Once again fortune smiled on us and made available an ideal new location, five times the size of the little store, just a block and a half away, and already set up as a market. The site (our current address on Sherman Way) was originally built in 1945 and had previously been doing business as Larrie’s Butcher Shop. Admittedly, we experienced a certain sense of satisfaction as we dismantled the bloodstained old butcher shop and replaced it with our vegetarian store and restaurant.
A butcher shop occupied the Sherman Way building, before Follow Your Heart took over in 1976.
Putting up the “Follow Your Heart” sign at the Sherman Way location.
By 1983, a desire to expand beyond LA led us to purchase an existing natural food store in Santa Barbara, formerly operated by Sunburst Farms. That store later moved to a location just a few blocks up Milpas Street to provide a larger store and to make room for a restaurant. In May 1986, Michael and Spencer sold their interests in Follow Your Heart to Bob and Paul and went on to pursue other things.
The Santa Barbara location (1983 - 1997)
Follow Your Heart at Home
Shortly thereafter, in 1988, Bob and Paul started a manufacturing company which they named Earth Island (inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s “Spaceship Earth”). The new company produced packaged fresh deli items, originally created in our small kitchen for our very first customer, Trader Joe’s. Earth Island soon expanded into making our own Follow Your Heart branded salad dressings, cheese alternatives, and the world-renowned Vegenaise eggless mayo, which today can be found throughout the U.S. and abroad.
In 1997, the Santa Barbara store was sold, allowing Bob and Paul to concentrate more of their energy and attention to the rapidly growing manufacturing business.
Early, hand-drawn concept for the first Vegenaise label.
Following its invention by us, Vegenaise was used only at Follow Your Heart. It was first introduced into wider distribution in 1995 as the first refrigerated, eggless mayonnaise.
A New Era
Following the passing of co-founder Paul Lewin in 2020, Earth Island was sold to Danone, a French multi-national food manufacturer which continues to produce Follow Your Heart brand products. The Goldberg family retained their interest in Follow Your Heart Market and Café and remain active with the company.
At the very heart of our story are the thousands of individuals who have been an integral part of the more than 50-year history of our company. Some stayed for weeks, others for decades, and without them, or you, there would be no story.
If you ever worked or shopped at Follow Your Heart, or were in any way a part of Follow Your Heart’s history and have photos or stories that you’d like to share, please send them to us to add to our ever-growing archive. We’d love to re-connect and reminisce with you. Please include your best recollection of the time frame and names of those in your photos.
With love and gratitude.
-Follow Your Heart
