Health Brews

(photo courtesy of Cafe Mata)

When she opened Cafe Mata in the lobby of South Front District’s Yoga Salt earlier this month, SESA O’CONNOR set out to offer a healthy, wholly plant-based menu that didn’t compromise on flavor.

“I wanted to bring the healthy vegan options without taking away that experience of really good treats and coffee and teas and lattes,” she says

Cafe Mata – Wilmington’s only fully plant-based coffee shop – opened its doors at 1540 South Second Street, Suite 220, on July 6. The menu features an array of Asian-inspired coffee and tea drinks alongside more traditional drinks such as lattes, cappuccinos, and flat whites.

The cafe’s plant-based approach and ingredients are rooted in O’Connor’s background. She grew up vegetarian and her mom, KATHY HOSHIJO-O’CONNOR, instilled the importance of diet in promoting health and wellness.

“I grew up eating very healthy, no processed flours, no processed sugars,” O’Connor says. “It was always whole grains, lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, the whole nine.”

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hoshijo-O’Connor even hosted a cooking show on PBS called Kathy Cooks Naturally. It was the first nationally televised vegetarian cooking show, O’Connor says.

After living much of her life on the West Coast, O’Connor moved to Wilmington in 2019.

She has been life-long friends with TAMAL DODGE, who moved to Wilmington in 2018 to open YogaSalt. O’Connor became a yoga teacher at the studio – something she continues to do while running Cafe Mata.

O’Connor and Dodge talked about opening a plant-based breakfast or brunch cafe, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“The (real estate) market just skyrocketed, and so getting a building and everything, it just got too expensive,” O’Connor says.

Eventually, Dodge suggested converting YogaSalt’s lobby into a cafe. The space was largely empty except for a few benches used by those waiting for the next yoga class, O’Connor says.

It took about a year to get the cafe up and running – a process that included a months-long permitting process, hiring a contractor to build out the coffee shop counter and adding a fresh coat of paint and new decorations to the space.

Much of Cafe Mata’s menu is Japanese inspired, incorporating ingredients O’Connor, who is half Japanese, grew up eating, she says.

The Ube Latte combines Japanese purple sweet potato with oat milk to create a drink with a subtle caramel flavor and rich purple color while the Sakura Iced Latte features the flavor of cherry blossoms.

The Midnight Dream combines activated charcoal made from a coconut shell, espresso and oat milk for a “smooth and dramatic” drink that pulls toxins out of the body, O’Connor says.

Cafe Mata’s version of sweet tea is a subtly sweet Jasmine Green Tea that O’Connor cold brews for more than 24 hours, and she makes her own version of Thai Iced Tea that’s sweetened with agave.

Mata means mother in Sanskrit, the ancient language of the yoga system, invoking the idea of earth as a mother, O’Connor says.

“Beyond that, the meaning is really kind of an homage to my parents,” she adds.

So far, business has been consistent, O’Connor says, with the busiest times coming on the weekends and after the studio’s classes. O’Connor and Dodge, who’s also an investor in Cafe Mata, aim to use the new business to gauge the local response to a fully plant-based menu.

“This is hopefully a test run,” O’Connor says, “because we’d still love to be able to open that brunch option for people.”

Cafe Mata is open daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. The cafe also offers vegan pastries and other treats along with canned and bottled sparkling waters.

This story first appeared in Feast Unwrapped, Feast Wilmington’s weekly restaurant email newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter, click here.