1 day Ago By Sara Guymon
ROCHESTER — Lake City food truck, Indigo Açaí Bowls, is gearing up to open its northeast Rochester restaurant in the near future. Owners Willie and Nancy Rauen have been working on the space at 2571 Clare Lane NE, Suite 101, to prepare for the opening. Their location is close to Century High School and Rochester's newest McDonald's which was built last year.
ADVERTISEMENT The store comes after the couple saw success in their first two years of business in the food truck industry. This location became available and the Rauens decided now was the right time to expand. “We live in Lake City, so when you look up the address of the food truck, it's going to say Lake City, just because that's where we get mail, but we go up to the Cities,” said Nancy.
"We go over to Winona. We're in Rochester a lot. We're in Red Wing a lot.
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So we've got a pretty big service area.” The Rauens’ dream of owning an acai bowl business began while they were on vacation in Arizona in 2021. The couple had first learned about açaí bowls from Nancy’s son, Josh Drackley, after he took a trip to Florida and tried it there.
Açaí bowls are made from an açaí base with a variety of different toppings like granola, fruits, coconut oil, honey and more. Indigo Açaí Bowls also uses a soft serve açaí base instead of hand-scooped like ice cream. They opted for a soft serve to eliminate any of the icy textures that can happen with the other variety.
The business sells a variety of Minnesota-inspired bowls as well as a few unique ones like the Peanut Butter and Jelly Bowl and the Volcano Bowl, which has a little heat in it. There's also been a lot of suggestions from customers and employees for future flavors. “We aren’t afraid that we don't have a sellable product because the people that follow us love the product,” Nancy said.
“It's just getting out there. The one thing we hear a lot in the truck is, ‘oh my gosh, where have you been? We didn't even know you existed.’ We have social media.
We rely on word of mouth. We have a lot of friends that refer us to people, but just getting out there is the big thing.” They didn’t expect to be thinking about expansion so quickly after business began, but the timing just seemed right.
Both Nancy and Willie have lived near the Rochester area for decades, so when the location became available, they couldn’t pass it up. ADVERTISEMENT “It's essentially going to be the same thing,” Nancy said. “We haven't established our menu for sure, but there might be a few things that we don't offer in the truck, just because we'll have a lot more space.
Drinks, for example, there will likely be a few more offerings in the store versus in the truck, because the truck space is very limited.” When the couple first started thinking about their business, they had wanted a brick-and-mortar location. The cost was too expensive at the time and a truck was more efficient for the price, but a truck is only usable a few months out of the year.
“The main thing is that we really can't do the truck (in the winter),” Nancy said. “We've gone to events during the winter, but it's not a regular thing for us, so we want it to be a little more regular. The other thing is, many of our employees are high school students, and so when we're going off to other places, they either drive themselves or they ride in the truck with us, but we wanted to have a little more stability for some of them.
” They still plan to continue using the truck while the weather is nice, but they are excited to start this new business venture. One thing they are looking forward to bringing into their store are their environmentally-sustainable containers and spoons. They use all compostable materials to be as eco-friendly as possible.
The couple is just waiting for permits to get approved before they can open their doors for customers. They already do business in northeast Rochester once a week with their truck and are excited to have a more permanent location open in the near future. Indigo Açaí Bowls 507-261-6345 www.
indigoacaibowls.com.
