December 12, 2016

LA Food & Drink Diary: Ubatuba Açai

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ubatuba Açai .

We’d love to learn the story behind Ubatuba Açai .
My American friend Joe and I (Daniela, Brazilian woman) created Ubatuba Açai. It is a family business as we have my mom working with us and he has been a close friend for 15 years.

Açai is available everywhere in Brasil and during his visits with me to Brasil he noticed the açai was completed different than used in California. Places announce as Açai Bowls but they blend it with so many ingredients and so much of it that it ends up being far away from an Açai Bowl. That is why we consider ourselves an authentic açai place. We learned that by bringing our own product direct from Brasil from source to Ubatuba Acai, we would be able to offer acai as is at the beaches of Brasil to Californians by cutting the importer who is the middle man to many.

Ubatuba is a special town in Brasil.

We created the bowls one day by making it once we were done with building our first location. We knew how to prepare the açai and had talked about the bowls. We made them at home but never quite adorably looking as we make now days. We were done building our first location that we did with lots of care ourselves, painted the walls, destroyed walls, peeled old wall paper… we realized we didn’t know exactly how to make the bowls as pretty as we had talked about. So we made the 6 bowl and took a photo right then once we knew we could open. It was spontaneous and happy. That is the photo that we still use in our menus ad should continue for as long as Ubatuba Açai lives.

Successfully running a restaurant is extremely difficult. Tell us about some of the challenges you’ve had to overcome.
Hard and easy. Easy because it all happened and it is possible. Hard because to accomplish anything we have to work hard, focus, ignore hard times, persist and not believe on the down days, knowing that things pass and good chances and ideas always come to us when we put ourselves out there the right way. The best part is I have been doing this with a lot of passion.

Joe my friend once we opened he left and was gone for 2 years handling a restaurant he opened, so I continued Ubatuba on my own and opened 5 locations with the help of great staff who fell in love like I am for Ubatuba and worked hard as well. I opened the store with very little money, got very creative and simple, and we went after spreading the word like crazy and gladly things went really well. We love getting involved with the community and there is a lot to get involved in each place we open a store.
We will be Franchising in about a month or so, it has been 3.5 years of hard and happy work.

Is there something unique or interesting about Ubatuba Açai that our readers should know about?
Our secret menu is our 16 and 32 oz Açai only, for those who love açai only no toppings. Anyone can buy a single topping anytime anyway.

Our ambiance is meant to feel homie, casual and warm. We want everyone to feel they are at their best friend’s home, where you feel comfortable but it is not your own home. Remove shoes, raise leg on the chair, bring books, laugh, relax, come alone or with a group and be yourself. We play Brazilian music 95% of the time.

It is unique because of how we serve the açai, high content of acai with a beautiful design. Lots of people have come to us and opened stores just like Ubatuba, they design and try to be the same. It is interesting to watch because it was something that came from my heart and ended up at other couple places that is not Ubatuba. It is probably going to increase the number of places like Ubatuba. Colorful Ceramic Bowls, with a design and authentic style of açai is Ubatuba.