With its nutritious drinks, new Brookfield shop aims to ‘bring health to the local community’

Prior to owning the nutrition shop, Ortiz’s career included 15 years in the health and wellness industry as a group fitness instructor and personal trainer, with the roles offering valuable management and advertising experience.

She recalled how she left the group fitness gig and took on a personal training space owned by a friend who also owned a smoothie shop in Milford.

“It was very tough and I was doing a lot for other people, never gaining the recognition after all the work we did,” she said.

“I ended up taking [a friend’s] personal training studio and made my own personal training business,” Ortiz added. “And along with it I ended up buying [their] smoothie shop three years ago.”

Love and expansion in Brookfield

The seeds for the brand’s expansion to Brookfield were planted after Ortiz and her boyfriend and business-partner, Gerald Leone, rode through the town on a motorcycle ride.

Leone and Ortiz grew up in Norwalk and were “best friends and high school sweethearts and dated on and off until our early 20s.”

“And then after that we stopped speaking to each other and didn’t speak a word to each other for 15 years but we reconnected and at that point I had just opened the store in Milford.”

They had previously looked at spots in Danbury but felt the available properties in the city would get “lost in the shuffle.”

“We stopped and we were just taking a break and Gerald has been living in Danbury for 12 years so he was like, ‘wow, this is all really new, because it used to be like, nothing, and I wonder what they are doing up here.”

“We looked around and we saw this building that had a big “For Lease” sign in it,” Ortiz said. “We ended up calling our realtor and setting it up, it took almost a year and a half to two years, but we got there.”

Ortiz said she hired a handful of college-bound Brookfield natives, “a great group of girls,” to run the Brookfield location, while her 17-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son help manage the Milford store.

“We are trying all types of things to bring health to the local community,” Ortiz said.

“We are 100 percent different than your normal local business, we are looking to truly be a pillar for the community,” she added. “When you come into one of [our] shops, we are trying to give you an experience.”

She said she wants to bring customers “nothing but smiles, even if you are having a bad day.”

“We are really looking to become a healthy, physical and mental pillar in the community,” she said.

The store uses plant-based protein, according to Ortiz, “and everything we use to add on is sugar free.”

Subject to change, the nutritional store is open 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday and Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday, the hours are 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; and on Saturday, the hours are 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Sunday it is 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.