Owners Sarah Shay (L) and Amber Naccarato (R) relax in the sitting room of their new business, Prana Juice and Tea Room.
Photo By: Meegan Ware

Excitement buzzes as a new juice and tea shop finds its home in the Olsen Building in Deer Park. Behind their doors revealed a place of well-being with fresh pressed juices and healing beverages, embracing community support and overall wellness.

Prana means Life Force Energy – and that is exactly the goal of business owners Amber Naccarato and Sarah Shay as they open their new beverage store in Deer Park called Prana Juice and Tea Room. They opened their doors on July 9th and will be open Wednesday-Saturday, 9:30am-4:30pm.

“In the beginning, we will focus on juices, smoothies, loose leaf and superfood teas. We will use matcha, beetroots, turmeric, butterfly pea flour, spirulina. You can kind of get crazy with the powders as well, but our first big focus will be on fresh pressed juice,” says Naccarato.

The inspiration for starting this business was two-fold – their combined love of beverages and big life changes they were both experiencing.

Naccarato is a trained massage therapist who completed her schooling 11 years ago in Coeur d’Alene, ID, and spent several years teaching massage, energy work, and kinesthesiology. She then started working as a massage therapist in Post Falls, ID, focusing on emotional traumas. She worked with clients to help them release their inner trauma, which can cause physical pain, discomfort, and bad habits. “I started to realize that no matter how hard I worked on them or talked to them because most of the massage sessions were communication-based, that atmosphere was not facilitating the growth that I wanted to see.”

Shay wanted to do something in life that was different and for herself. After spending many years as a stay-at-home mom, she decided it was time for a change. For several years she worked on and off in coffee shops, but when Naccarato talked about this new venture, she thought it would be good to do something exciting with her best friend. At first, she thought of just doing what she could to support her friend, but eventually, the two decided to become partners in the business. They have experienced significant growth in stepping up and engaging with the community and discovering their own power and understanding of their capabilities. Shay says, “My youngest, who is 9, came up and gave me a big hug, and he said, ‘Wow, Mom, I didn’t know you could do this.’ So I also do this for my kids, so they can see that their moms and parents are capable of doing something big, and supporting them, having them come in and learn life skills as well, and teaching them, and giving them their first job, and allowing them to be in a family environment is going to be incredible.”

They offer beverages with fruits and vegetables and natural medicines and herbs – things that anyone can get their hands on if they need to. Shay says, “We want to make it accessible for people to heal their bodies. The core of it is to provide this, but also be in a place where you can be in community with people who are wanting to do the same. We want to offer as many healthy options as possible.”

They are very passionate about the functional mushrooms that you can add to the healing of your body, as well as proteins and collagens. “Lions Mane mushrooms are good for your mind, and those will be in the white smoothie we will be offering. Focusing on colors is a big deal with Eastern Medicine, so the drinks will be color categorized for specific healing. It has been a decent challenge to really nail the colors because certain colors hold specific medicine on their own,” says Naccarato. Eventually, they would like to add the use of essential oils into their drinks.

Additionally, they plan to offer a practitioner room and rent it to massage therapists or other health practitioners, such as energy healers, health coaches, or nutritionists. Community is a huge deal in the area right now, specifically to them. “We really want to focus on letting everyone know that we are not competing but supporting each other. That has been really growing in this area, and we are really excited about that. But we are very different from other beverage places.”, says Naccarato.

Sources:

• Naccarato, Amber and Shay, Sarah. Personal interview. 7 June 2023