#ELifeisCommunityStrong
Black Lives have mattered to ELife Restaurant since day one. We are here because of you. We will continue to stand for you. We will continue to fight for you. Let’s rise up...Together.
Everlasting Life Restaurant is not just another vegan restaurant, it is a place of peace, hope and inspiration in the midst of a community plagued with an astounding number sick and obese residents who have been drowning in a sea of poor dietary habits for decades. Located in a strip mall just minutes away from the nation’s capital, the establishment is surrounded by fast food restaurants with no source of fresh, healthy food for miles. “I see a community that was left without, underserved,”says Everlasting Life’s founder, Dr. Baruch. “It is gross what is being done to our people. But rather than curse the darkness, I made it a mission of Everlasting Life to shine that light.”
Dr. Baruch Ben-Yehudah (known as Dr. Baruch), who has been vegan since 1978, founded Everlasting Life with the idea that one should not have to leave one’s own neighborhood to find something healthy to eat. He looked around and realized there were only unhealthy restaurants serving his largely African American community. His observation is based on an awareness that stemmed from an experience he had 24 years ago. While setting up speakers at a food conference, he heard one of the speakers practicing her speech in which she said, ‘If you can control a man’s food, you can control a man.’ A statement that triggered both his heart and his business mind and led him to asking the very important question: ‘Who is controlling my food?’
That was the impetus for his first business, a food co-op in the garage of his Temple Hills home in the early 90s. He later opened a restaurant on Georgia Avenue in Washington, DC, Everlasting Life Café and in 2001 he opened Everlasting Life Restaurant and Lounge in Capitol Heights, MD. Everlasting Life is now scheduled to open a new location December 2018 in Anacostia. Anacostia particularly special in offering Dr. Baruch a homecoming, given his Southeast DC roots.
“Our food is our medicine,” Ben-Yehudah says. “We call Everlasting Life a ‘hospi-rant,’ a hospital restaurant.
Everlasting Life, now Elife Restaurant, is a cafeteria-style restaurant offering fresh salads, whole plant-based entrees and side dishes, vegan desserts, juices and smoothies. Visit one of our locations: Capitol Heights, Takoma Park and Anacostia. (DC Metro Area)