Getting creative with vegan recipes in her home kitchen in 2019, Lauren Wright found joy in cooking for family and friends. As someone with an autoimmune disease requiring a gluten-free diet, she was not limited but rather inspired to explore different dishes. Conscious Comforts, a pop-up eatery that serves vegan, and gluten-free treats and comfort foods, opened its kitchen in January 2020.
Wright enlisted her best friend Alexis Jensen to join her on the venture. The two had previously worked in the restaurant business, Wright bartending and Jensen on the managerial side.
“We were already friends but I was always impressed with the way she handled her assistant manager job and I knew I wanted her on my team,” Wright said.
Just a couple of months after getting their start, March of 2020 to be exact, they had to pivot their business model.
“That’s how we got into catering, doing family-style meals and free delivery just to make things work when the events were ending,” Wright said.
She said making that change helped expand the menu. For instance, when a potential customer asked if they could make enchiladas, they got to work.
The duo has not gone through culinary school, rather, pulling from life experiences and experimentation has helped them build up a menu of pastries, pizza, dips, breakfast burritos and “Nunzas,” a vegan play on Nebraska’s popular Runza.
“It’s definitely something I’ve always enjoyed growing up,” Wright said. “I was messing around in my kitchen and I’d love to go down to my grandparents’ house and cook with my grandma. A lot of my memories are definitely built around food and cooking.”
A Feel for the Feel-Good
One aspect of the business model came as a surprise to the owners — while Omaha’s vegan eateries are few and far between, they also saw a growing need for gluten-free cuisine.
“I think that’s Lauren’s favorite thing to do in the kitchen, is find something and then ‘veganize’ it and make it gluten-free,” Jensen said. “It’s something that you can’t find anywhere else. Vegan, gluten-free tamales is one of her specialty items.”
Much of those specialties come from nostalgia, either from the co-owners themselves, or customers sharing their gratitude for finding foods they missed eating from childhood.
“There are kids who have been gluten-free their whole life who have never had a Pop Tart and their parents haven’t had them in eight years,” Wright said. “They’re always super excited to be able to enjoy something that they haven’t been able to have for a really long time or have never had at all.”
Either for the nostalgia or for the allure, Pop Tarts and cinnamon rolls remain top-ranking among customers.
They aim to provide dishes that include different dietary needs without excluding anyone or necessitating separate dishes.
“Even if you have no restrictions and you just want to get food for a friend who does, try it yourself because we make food for everybody,” Wright said.
Community and Culinary Comforts
Aside from catering, Conscious Comforts products are currently available at 13 wholesalers in the area.
“You can also order online and just pick up from our kitchen six days a week, we just ask for a 48-hour notice,” Jensen said.
During the summer months, customers can find products at farm stands and the Omaha Farmers Market. Following Conscious Comforts on Instagram and Facebook will give customers the most up-to-date information on when and where they will be popping up. Without a designated storefront, Wright and Jensen encourage patronizing their partners or visiting pop-ups to give their foods a shot.
Measured Success
Both Wright and Jensen have pulled from their experiences in the restaurant industry to make informed decisions about the growth of the business, but at the end of the day, they’re leading the charge, and like many small business owners, are taking each day as it comes.
“In our other careers before, we always had ideas to bounce off maybe a boss or someone who had more experience than us,” Jensen said. “In this company, it’s just us.”
The friends have been strategic in how they expand, not even accruing any debt or seeking out loans.
“We’ve kind of just always gone with the flow, kind of cliche, but we’ve grown as much as we could afford,” Wright said. “Almost having a lack of money sometimes was good for us because it really made us hunker down and make sure that we’re making the best decision financially with purchases.”
“Pop Tarts.” Flavors like blueberry lemon and strawberry with peanut
butter frosting are available at many of the company’s wholesale partners.(Photography by Debra S. Kaplan)
Onward
Looking ahead, they plan on strategically growing into different wholesalers and coffee shops around town. Partnering with local grocery stores may also be on the horizon for some of the more popular items.
Most recently Wright began experimenting with housemade Snickers bars, and as you can imagine, the much-needed taste-testing is a necessary challenge in self-control.
“It’s hard,” Wright said with a laugh.
Website: www.consciouscomforts.com
Social media: Facebook, Instagram
Wholesale partners: Artemis Tea, Cream of the Crop, Crum Cakes Bakery, Cup & Cone, Ellsworth Crossing, The Grove, Herban Coffee and Blooms, Huffman Produce, Le Petit Paris, Nelson Produce Farm, Pause Coffee Shop, Rutabaga’s Comfort Food, STIR Coffee Bar.
