STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Viva is where the wheatgrass grows—literally, right on the Rosebank restaurant’s counter. The ingredients for running a health‑food spot on Staten Island take equal parts perseverance and passion, something Joanne Schulter and Eloy Balderas have learned firsthand while juggling multiple jobs to keep up the verve—and the wheatgrass—in their juice and salad shop in Rosebank.
Personal motivation
The couple opened last summer, adding the business to Schulter’s two other jobs and Balderas’s work in the food industry. Their motivation was personal: after Balderas developed a fatty liver and high blood sugar, they began juicing at home and saw dramatic improvements within three months—a lifestyle shift that inspired them to bring the same approach to their neighborhood despite their own heavy workloads.
It has since become Balderas’s labor of love at the shop, where he talks nutrition with customers and researches the alchemy of ingredients. For him, the journey started with experimenting at home—aloe vera, garlic, and other not-so-pleasant blends—but the results were undeniable. Juicing, he explains, pulls the liquid from fruits and vegetables to concentrate their nutrients, flavors, and enzymes into a single, easy-to-sip serving—a method he turned to when he began looking for a cleaner, more restorative way to support his health.
“The doctor couldn’t believe it,” Schulter said. “He said whatever you’re doing, keep doing it because he wanted to put me on Lipitor.”
Freshness is Viva’s calling card. Everything is made to order, and the couple makes their own almond and oat milk in small batches, squeezing the mash through cheesecloth by hand. No bottled juices sit waiting in coolers.
“We prepare clean food, all made to order,” Schulter said. “If you get a salad from us, it’s prepared on the spot—everything, including the lettuce, picked right.”
Still a hidden gem
That success sparked the idea for a storefront. But getting the word out has been its own challenge. “Everybody who comes in says, ‘Thank you for opening, we’re so happy,’” Schulter said. “But I feel like so many people still don’t know we’re here.”
The menu ranges from immunity shots to a liver-rescue blend of carrots, beets, celery and apple. Digestive smoothies feature papaya and pineapple. They offer gluten-free options, mushroom coffee and herbal teas. Balderas often advises customers on drinks that might help their specific health concerns.
Behind the scenes, they compost all fruit and vegetable scraps in their backyard, part of a strict waste-reduction routiSchulter brings three decades of photography experience to the business side, having run Portraits by Schulter in Dyker Heights for 25 years. She now works for the New York City Department of Education and still shoots freelance on weekends, while also handling the restaurant’s social media and bookkeeping. Balderas manages the cooking and ordering—and did the construction work himself. Every morning, he packs Schulter a lunch for work, a quiet reminder of the partnership that keeps Viva going.
Getting ready for spring
Schulter and Balderas initially opened seven days a week, but winter taught them to respect the neighborhood’s circadian rhythms. They scaled back—now Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.—realizing how much weather shapes people’s appetites for salubrious fare. “It’s like the body craves it,” they acknowledged. As the weather warms, they plan to expand again, opening from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Business fluctuates with the seasons. Summer brought crowds from the nearby base, but winter traffic dropped off despite the constant flow of commuters heading to the ferry. “You can’t cross the street sometimes for 10 minutes because the streets are packed with everybody going toward the ferry,” Schulter said. “So how are they not stopping in?”
Still, neighborhood support keeps them going. Owners of nearby businesses—from the pharmacy to yoga studios—have become regulars. “Every week we get new people,” Schulter said. “They come in and they say, ‘Wow, we love this.’”…