We were lucky to catch up with Caroline Yares recently and have shared our conversation below.

Caroline , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Plant Based all started with an idea to make a few t shirts for myself, as a way to promote my new found love for plant based food and the vegan lifestyle.

As a new vegetarian back in 2014 (thanks to a few documentaries: Forks over Knives & Cowspricy ) I became passionate about this new found passion and wanted to share it with friends and family. The t-shirts I made for myself and my husband were a thin font, with the words “PLNT BSD” on them. The thin font and lack of the full spelling of the word caused many to reach out and ask about what the phrase meant. This quickly opened the discussion about the choice to go plant based for my own personal reasons, and then my hope was to then inspire others to take their own action. :)

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

After a few years of doing pop-ups around the twin cities (and LA) I realized that my passion was moving toward the food aspect of the vegan lifestyle. Every morning before work at my dental job, I would take time to create beautiful, 100% plant based smoothies for myself, as a form of meditation. I would craft each bowl based on my mood that day and the weather.
I started to post these bowls on social media and got a lot of fun feedback from family and friends.
After a long trip to my favorite place (Puerto Rico) I had an Ah-Ha moment, where I realized that I was ready for a BIG career change. I left the dental world, (as much as I loved working in orthodontics) and opened PLNT BSD Smoothie Bowls.

Our brand focuses on spreading the message about a plant based lifestyle and diet by creating BEAUTIFUL and delicious 100% vegan (plant based) smoothie bowls and more. We want to show people that plant based food doesn’t have to be only veggies or only salads, You can create so many beautiful and healthy meals even after going plant based with a little bit of practice. My favorite thing is when a regular customer brings a new friend to the trailer and they fall in love with PLNT BSD.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Shortly after we opened up our first brick and mortar location in Downtown White Bear Lake, the world was hit with the pandemic and I was a mom of a newborn baby girl. My life was turned over. What was once a fun, carefree business, became a struggle every day. We pivoted our business model to take out only after a few weeks of being open at the store front.
This is where I take a moment to thank my staff for all their help. Looking back on this time in PLNT BSD’ story, this was the hardest time, and I now see that I was in survival mode.
When things started to cool down, we were able to open back up, and made it through when many other small businesses failed. I owe this all to our loyal customers, the community, and my staff. THANK YOU!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

After two years at our brick and mortar. I realized that I was falling out of the actual day to day smoothie making process, the creative part of PLNT BSD that originally made me make this career switch. With a 2 year old, a business, a social and family life, I realized I personally was being stretched too thin, and the product itself was not exactly what I wanted it to be.We made the hard decision to move back to a mobile trailer.
Although the decision was difficult, it was 100% the right one! I realized that I was placing too much pressure on myself and my ego to keep the brick and mortar open, when in reality, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Opening the mobile trailer now allows us the flexibility to do events, and move to different locations around town!
We are local to white Bear Lake and live downtown, so our main goal is to stick to our roots. :)

Contact Info:

• Website: www.plntbsdbowls.com
• Instagram: plnt_bsd
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plnt_bsd
• Other: We update our instagram the most and are on happy cow !

Image Credits
@voyageur_nord @bitesizedbeet Instagram