The Café: A Healthy, Tasty Place to Relax
Whether you're seeking to relax quietly with a book or socialize with friends, the Omega Café, perched above the garden as you enter the campus, exerts a tantalizing pull. Open from early morning until late in the evening, the Café offers a panoply of coffees, teas, and other beverages, tasty baked treats, full meals and take-out, and locally made Jane’s Ice Cream. The Café is an air-conditioned retreat from the summer heat where you can unwind with a puzzle or board game and enjoy free Wi-Fi, or relax in the shade of an umbrella at a picnic table on the generous outdoor deck.
With an ongoing emphasis on local ingredients, the menu offers an appetizing and healthy approach to meals and snacks, including breakfast items such as egg and cheese options, tofu scrambles, burritos, bagels, and more, and satisfying lunch and dinner items such as burgers, bowls, sandwiches, and salads. Add fries, with your choice of Truffle Aioli or Chipotle Mayo, for an indulgent accompaniment.
In addition to expanded meal options for those on paleo and grain-free diets, along with vegan and vegetarian selections, the snack menu often includes Omega classics such as the Jivamukti Cookie and Vegan Goji Cacao Macaroons.
The Café focuses on continuing to take steps toward sustainability, with food-service practices that reflect Omega's goal of zero waste throughout the campus, including using recyclable or compostable containers. Café goers can also find a selection of reusable mugs and water bottles to aid Omega's and their own zero-waste efforts.
The Bookstore: Stocked With What You Need & Want
When you're done relaxing at the Café, you can stop next door at the Omega Bookstore where longtime manager Jean LaPlante has collected an ever-changing selection of clothing, crystals, books, jewelry, and sacred objects for the wide range of participants who come to campus. With an eye toward stocking as much as possible from sustainable and fair trade sources, Jean and her identical twin sister Joan, who is the assistant manager and clothing buyer, offer everything from essentials such as toothpaste and sunscreen to affordable and even higher-end items in an effort to meet individual needs and preferences.
Following a winter spent sifting through inventory from the previous season as well as researching new items, Jean and her staff move back into the freshly cleaned space in early April to create all the displays. Doors open for business in time for the first workshops of the on-campus season.
“I love creating a beautiful space for people to come into,” Jean said. “We have so much that it takes a certain touch, a way of looking at things so it doesn’t feel overcrowded and messy.”
Some of the most popular items in the Omega Bookstore include:
- An ever-expanding selection of crystals (currently more than 80 types) includes all the basics—rose quartz, amethyst, aventurine, citrines, fluorite—as well as more esoteric varieties, such as celestials, moldavite, lepidolite, azurite, kyanite, danburites, and mookaite
- Jewelry that is primarily gemstone-based, and displayed so you can easily try it on
- Clothing that features mostly loose, flowing styles in a wide variety of sizes, to suit all ages and genders
- A central book display that changes every Friday and Sunday to reflect publications by teachers currently on campus
- A section for and about children that offers books and games that focus on yoga, mindfulness, creative play, and current issues
- An increasing selection of sacred objects, such as singing bowls, meditation cushions, statues, and malas, many of which are made by Omega staff members
The Wellness Center: An Extra Special Touch
After eating and shopping, you can head up the hill for a relaxing treatment at the Wellness Center. The Wellness Center offers approximately 45 services in massage, body therapies, skin care and facials, energy work, wellness, and other special services to support your on-campus experience.
From massage to acupuncture, and shamanic healing to Reiki, you're sure to find an option that's right for you. Can’t decide? Our wellness concierge will help you find the perfect treatment, while also making sure you don't miss a moment of your workshop, meals, or other Omega events. Check out the treatment menu, and look for weekly specials when you arrive on campus.
The Wellness Center’s 16 rooms—with annex locations around campus and hours that run from early afternoon through evening—offer many options and make it possible for guests to book simultaneously with a partner or friend.
“Please book services as soon as you can to ensure that you are able to get the services you want and have a credit card handy when you book,” said Manager Michelle Castro Gibson. “Our entire team looks forward to welcoming you to Wellness.”
Don’t Forget to Use Your Member Discount
Whether you visit the Omega Cafe, Bookstore, Wellness Center, or all three, remember your member discount applies to many of the items and services you will experience. Enjoy!
