OH! Juice, specializing in cold-pressed organic juice cleansing drinks, started out at local farmers markets, before opening a tasting room in Carlsbad in 2016. Now it's added a full vegan menu at its new Encinitas store
Former Gramercy Tavern pastry cook Lauren Tran never expected her assortments of ube and coconut mousse chiffon cakes, longan macarons, and bánh bò nướng a pandan-flavored tapioca and rice flour pastry to appeal beyond her social circle. But when the recent pastry school graduate’s bánh boxes, a mix of Vietnamese desserts and French pastries, started selling out in minutes each week on Instagram, it turned her previous life plan on its head. “I was able to lean into who I am as a Vietnamese-American woman,” she says. Now, Tran is looking to translate that success into a business, Bánh by Lauren, that honors Vietnamese desserts with the respect and regard she sees given European and Japanese baked goods.