Community Corner

Cobble Hill Yoga Studio-Café Celebrates Belated Opening After Sandy

Take Root on Sackett St. is certified open—serving up dinner, lunch and a bunch of different yoga classes.


As businesses in Brooklyn's waterfront communities continue to recover after the hurricane this fall, their stories are beginning to emerge from the rubble—stories of struggle and stories of victory.

Yesterday, a new small business in Cobble Hill turned their own tale into the latter. 

Take Root Noshery + Yoga Room, located at 187 Sackett St., was originally meant to open its doors back in August, but got pushed back waiting on an inspection from FDNY. Once the owners finally received their appointment date, it was for Monday, Oct. 29—the day Sandy decided to strike NYC.

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"We were incredibly lucky to not have any physical damage to Take Root," says chef Elise Kornack, an alum of Food Networks’ Chopped and co-owner of Take Root. "But understandably all city officials, including the fire department, were then occupied with Sandy recovery. So all inspection dates or appointments were put on hold."

Left in limbo for another two months during which bills racked up, but the business was unable to turn a profit, Take Root's FDNY inspection finally came at the end of December and they officially unlocked their doors this week—just in time to serve up warming and cozy fare for those looking to escape from the cold.

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Open for lunch and dinner, some of the highlights of the current Take Root menu include "the '6 Minute Egg,' which is a very soft boiled egg that is fried in a polenta crust that then resembles a shell, so when you crack it open with your spoon it oozes out," describes Kornack. "Also, the warm apple sauce with yogurt mousse is pretty popular these days, as is the beans and greens with garlic chips."

If you're in need of something heartier, two dinner entrees of note are the pan-roasted skate with sunchoke and poppy, and the lamb ragu with squash ravioli and pickled squash. And on Friday and Saturday nights, neighbors can reserve a seat for an intimate and seasonally inspired 5-course prix-fixe dinner ($85pp).

But perhaps you're not so much looking to escape the cold, as to escape the stress of everyday life? In that case, Take Root's yoga classes offer another kind of respite.

Open Flow and Intermediate Flow are available immediately. But starting in February, a new workshop called The Dosha Practice, based on Ayurvedic principles, will teach students how to determine which practice is best according to one's dosha.  

"We also have children's yoga, which we are very excited about," says Kornack, pointing out the Little Yogis classes for kids ages 2-6. "We are really hoping to get through to parents who are interested in a different afterschool activity—they can have a bite or a cup of coffee in the same space that their child is learning yoga." 

The extra time spent inside Take Root's proverbial cocoon this fall, though quite an ordeal, has yet to diminish any of the owner's passion for their project. In fact, it may have only driven Kornack and her partner Anna Hieronimus further in their mission to succeed.

"Our New Years resolution is to stay positive and patient," says Kornack.

After all, good things come to those who wait.


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