Live Island Cafe

Sad to hear that they closed, not surprised though, they never had enough food in stock. What they did have though was amazing! Especially the falafel and the tea…

Just got back with some delicious cabbage wraps with a substantial, nutty, spicy filling. This is a very small but very clean health food shop with an herbal garden right in front. It’s a small garden, growing only a few things like basil and mint but c’mon how awesome is that. The food is pricey even for its ilk but it’s hard to complain when quality places like this are a dying breed, it seems. The food (vegan and vegetarian meals, desserts, juices) are good, service is good, the atmosphere is cozy with only a few chairs inside and outside a small area with a table and a few more chairs. There are a couple of other unique things about this place. For one, they offer something called «Rock the Box» which is essentially a prepaid, premade meal plan for either 6 or 31 days. Check out their website or stop by for more info. Another fantastic Live Island Café offering is their regular «uncooking classes» for $ 35 per person. Like the proverb, «Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish…»
The only disappointment was the lack of fresh coconut water. Otherwise, this place is stellar! They accept credit card. See photos.

Great Tasty RAW Food! Today was my first time eating here and If I don’t make it myself, I usually can’t tolerate bland, albeit raw food fare. But here… such flavor! So well seasoned. I’m usually grabbing for my Himalayan Salt, but not at this place.
I don’t understand why some folks complain she doesn’t have everything on her menu available sometimes. Don’t you get it? RAW food is RARE food. Especially on Long Island. Fresh, Local, organic, seasonal produce DOES NOT just fall off a truck daily. That’s what happens when you serve real, live food. This is not mass produced CRAP from a can or box people. You can tell she puts a lot of care and passion into her dishes. If she served this amazing food in a paper towel, from a push cart and I had to sit on the sidewalk and eat it in the cold — I would… with pleasure!
I hope she is blessed to open a location in Nassau County. (I’m speaking that into existence) Perhaps she would be better appreciated there (hint, wink). It’s a drive for me from Westbury, but well worth it. Great prices and really flavorful food. Raw foodies need to rally behind Live Island Café instead of bitchin bout what she isn’t, wasn’t or doesn’t. Go to a KFC if a consistent menu and lots of tables is that important to you. But don’t say a friggin word, if she doesn’t thrive because of your dumb complaints. Then you’ll have to go to all the other great Raw joints on Long Island (NOT).
Today I ate my lunch in my car with the windows down, enjoyed the sunshine, chowed down and slurped it back with a great Sacre Blue smoothie! AND SO WHAT. If you support it, she will grow. (2 or 3 stars is unreasonable and misleading in my opinion) I’m sure She would like to offer more, but first things first — serve Awesome, Affordable, Raw, Vegan Food. DUH! Get with the program folks or your gonna blow it.
I can’t wait to come back. What a surprising treat… Go Girl :)

Arriving on the suggestion of my trainer, I was looking for a Rockin Wellness shake as a post workout item, but the place seemed to have a problem on a busy Sunday morning opening on time. My first visit at 11:05 then became 11:15, and that led to 11:30am…I must have the patience of a saint sometimes… but Huntington is very much alive on Sunday morning!
I like trying new foods and ways, but in glancing at the menu… I stuck with the shake, which was made well.
I will revisit this venue in the future to try real items from the menu.

Heard about this place and was super stoked about checking them out.
I decided to not read in depth into the reviews about the place as I wanted to take it all in as it is, as a stranger, on whim and kinda roll with it. I wanted to be suprised. Raw vegan places are not like a pizza joint, you don’t stumble upon them you have to look for them.
Place is pretty small. There are chairs but no tables for indoor dining. Everything is «to-​go». I checked out the menu and noticed that the sign that said to the effect «menu selections may change on availibity and the inspiration of the chef»
I ordered the falafel on a bed of greens. I can honestly say that it might have been the best falafel I’ve ever had. It was rich and moist and bursting with flavor. Each bite was a creamy morsel of tender chic peas and spices. It was amazing.
Downsides? The place is small, no sit down dining and the menu is apparently subject to change without notice.
That being said, the falafel made it so worth going.

What a disappointment. I called to place a nice large order for work one day and I had a huge list of items ready to order. Basically anything that had mushrooms in it… they didnt have. Everything on my list had mushrooms in it. So as i kept rattling off different options from their menu they said they didnt have it. Absolute bumout.
So I asked THEM what I could order and they gave me an option of 2 things. 2 THINGS!
We got some lettuce wrapped burger thing that was ehhh…
Their location is also awful. They are not in huntington village so be mindful of that.

Wow!!! Absolutely delicious! I licked my plate afterwards, wishing I had more!
I had a delicious smoothie with pineapple, spinach, ginger, lemon and coconut water. Sooo goood! And then I had the rawsagna, greens, and pad thai! Full of flavor! I wish I could give more than 5 stars! Okima thank you so much for opening this café on Long Island! May be coming here 3 – 4 times a week now!

I can not say enough positive things about Chef Okima and her wonderful staff of assistants… been there most every week since last spring for lunch take out, and just given her or her staff a request for «Chef’s Whim» and my own «Take out container» (
)
Something diff each time, ALL of it delicious. Think many of these reviews overly harsh when it comes to the «shelf life» of raw and vegan, they used to «take out» where somebody zaps, in a micro food that has been frozen for ???, and it’s easy to have «everything on menu» under such circumstances! Walk in and ask what they recommend today and I guarantee you’ll be DELIGHTED!!! It is true that unless a lovely day for «alfresco» dining you can not eat there (lovely out door dinning) and have to eat somewhere else, but otherwise I just can’t say enough about this Lunch option! As a long time Veg., eat lunch «on the road» and if didn’t bring my own from home, always a SEARCH for decent food (not just cheese for protein) and tired of fats and oils in Take out Chinese… SO GLAD for this wonderful alternative!!!

Although I’m not the type of person who goes out of their way to eat Vegan and/​or Organic foods, when coming here with some friends a few weeks ago, I came and gave it a shot and overall while all the foods were very fresh (and you’re able to watch it being prepared), I was disappointed at the selection along with how they were out of a few of their listed items due to a catering order.
I would give Live Island Café an extra star if they had a better selection and were better able to handle the orders, however personally the selection part was a big factor for me since I can be a picky eater at times.
That aside, in terms of the food quality and freshness and even price, I’d definitely give Live Island Café five stars. I remember hearing the restaurant is only about five months old so I’m sure in a couple of months the café will greatly improve.

Interesting…
I heard about this place over the Vegan Long Island Meetup group. I have been waiting to try it and I wasn’t super impressed which is upsetting. One thing that was great and can’t be denied was that everything was undeniably fresh and organic! The prices (as raw places go) were pretty reasonable.
I got a 16oz Aztec Nectar ($ 7) which is a drink made from a nut/​seed milk of your choice, banana, maca, coco, lucuuma, agave, and cinnamon. We got it with hemp milk and it was not a sweet drink. It was a very filling drink though and still tasted good. Not something I would ever order again, but interesting.
I also got a small salad with sprouted mung beans and sprouted quinoa which I think was $ 5. It tasted like a forest, in a good way. Really small for a lot of dough though. Honestly I want to open a place that has raw options that aren’t tiny portions. Raw salad really isn’t that expensive to make whether it be organic or not organic.
I was almost ready to pay (btw cash only) when I saw raw brownies and I couldn’t help myself. They were only $ 2 each and were pretty small but whatever. It was delicious!
The service was pretty slow. I waited quite a while before someone came up to me and asked what I wanted. It’s very laid back in there. We had a nice conversation once the food started going.
One thing that was a little annoying is that by their website you have no idea that it’s just a take out place or that they have a different menu every day. It seems like the giant menu is always available and that you can sit and eat there. They do have two tables outdoors now but, it’s really just a take out place. Luckily, I knew this before coming.
So all in all, it’s okay. I wish them luck, especially because they are the only strictly vegan (minus honey if you care about honey) establishment on Long Island. There are definitely some improvements to be made but they are a new place after all. I hope next time I come back I can raise the review a star. I’d definitely suggest at least a try of something here.
:)

I’m sad to say that I’m not very impressed with this place. My fiancé and I went to eat at Live Island Café very excited because its hard to find this type of food anywhere locally. They advertise that they are dine-​in or take out so living 45 minutes away we fully expected to eat there. We were disappointed to discover only 3 chairs for waiting and no tables.
Beyond this, there wasn’t much of a selection. They were out of half the things we tried to order and needed to make substitutions in order to make the rest. We ordered the Abundance Burger, which they were out of and she offered to make a variation of it with portobello and we literally got half of a marinated portobello mushroom wrapped in a very large lettuce leaf. It was easily 70% lettuce and it cost $ 8.
All in all we paid $ 29 for what basically broke down to 4 table spoons of tamale filling, lettuce, more lettuce and an avocado. Honestly, thats not much of an exaggeration.
I will say that the food was pretty good considering the lack and quality of this kind of cuisine elsewhere on the island but it wasn’t amazing. Between this and the fact that the portions were quite small this place is way over priced. You can get better vegan, vegetarian and raw food in the city for the same money. Sometimes less. With a 45 minute drive to get to Live Island Café, I might as well keep driving right into the city.

FINALLY! I was so delighted upon my regular routine search on google in hopes of a raw restaurant finally coming to Long Island last Friday night. I woke up the next day and took a beautiful scenic drive through Huntington to the Live Island Café. I am so happy to have discovered them and was not at all deterred by the long drive or lack of seating as it beats going into the city for raw food. There are plenty of lovely places nearby to have a picnic with this divine food and boy was it worth the drive! They change the menu all the time based on chef’s inspirations but you can get sampler platters and try everything that was made for the day. What a delight! Don’t you always want to try everything?! The fact that the ‘everything’ will be new items next time gives me something to look forward to even though I want to eat everything I had saturday all over again. I have been eating raw food since I was in the womb and have had the best of the best gourmet raw food. I have to say every bite was a delight! Chef Okima has mixed flavors I have never tasted together or imagined possible, so innovative and precise with every bite. I hope everyone gets out there and supports Live Island Café at every chance, you won’t be disappointed as fireworks go off on your taste buds at every bite! I can’t wait to go back!

I came here for lunch with some ladies from work and overall, we were pretty impressed. We shared our meals and, between us, got to enjoy hummus and salad, falafel in a wrap, tomato basil soup, a pineapple/​banana/​kale smoothie, pizza, an abundance burger, and two rich and delicious balls of chocolatey goodness.
The place is tiny and set back, not something you’d probably spot from the road unless you were actively looking for it, but luckily… we were. We were a little disappointed by the fact that there was no seating (we had to lug our food back to work and eat in the staff lounge) but if we had known that going in, I don’t think it would have been a big deal. Also, it’s cash only. That was almost a problem.
Anyway, once we worked out all the logistics of getting lunch at Live Island Café, it was great. I am a really open-​minded foodie who has eaten lots of different foods from lots of different countries, but I have to say, this was probably the healthiest thing I have ever gotten at a restaurant (I feel inaccurate calling it a restaurant when it’s really just a take-​out place but whatever). I was really impressed by the freshness and flavor-​fulness of everything we had. The pizza, although totally un-​pizza-​ish, was so good that I could see myself having a dream about it tonight. And those chocolates for dessert… GAH! I don’t even have words for those!
One more eh note: the menu online lists a TON of things when in actuality, its a seasonal menu with a LOT less options. Everything we had was great, but don’t start drooling over the enticing meals listed online or, like me, you’ll be a little disappointed upon walking in.

I finally got a chance to check out Long Island’s first raw café! My boyfriend and I got the sampler platter for dinner. It included zucchini spaghetti, crackers, caprese salad, pizza with cashew cheese and kale, falafel, tabouli salad, stuffed mushrooms, and sauerkraut. Everything was fresh, flavorful, and beautifully presented. We also tried the chocolate chip cookie balls for dessert, which were so addictive and guilt-​free! I will definitely be visiting often, and I look forward to taking a raw cooking class and attending the open house. Although there is currently no seating, you can bring your meal to scenic Hecksher Park, which is right down the road (or catch a movie at the nearby Cinema Arts Centre and eat in their beautiful garden). I was told there might be outdoor seating along Mill Pond just down E. Main Street near the firehouse.
P. S. Live Island was a bit hard to find since my GPS wouldn’t let me type in EAST Main Street. Once you pass Heckscher Park, the café will be a bit east of the park on your left (it’s set back next to a barber shop).

Excellent food, they obviously use fresh high quality ingredients. It’s strictly takeout, there are no tables. Also, they make everything from scratch — including cutting up the fruit for the smoothies when you order (they would be better off prepping the fruit though to speed things up). The kitchen is open & the staff very nice. I am not a vegetarian, but I enjoyed the burger wrap & the brownie was awesome.

This place is absolutely phenomenal! The Falafel and pizzas are amazing… along with everything else! I can’t wait to take a cooking (or not cooking) class!
GO TO LIVE ISLAND CAFE ! Try everything!
I felt soo energized after eating my meal.
I can’t wait to go back. :)