Seguin Gazette: New shop shaking it up with nutritional offerings

Dalondo Moultrie The Seguin Gazette

Often when a coworker invites another to lunch, the guessing game of where to eat begins.

Ideas of eateries are tossed about, only to be shot down for one reason or another.

Well, a Seguin woman and her business partners are hoping to end the debate and are inviting the hungry masses to visit their new spot for a healthful, energizing, liquid lunch.

Seguin Nutrition recently opened up shop in downtown Seguin.

“It’s a healthy shake and tea bar,” said Nicole Marcell, one of the partners who own and operate the shop. “We have meal replacement shakes.”

Offering shakes made mostly of fruits and vegetables with Herbalife protein for a well-rounded meal, Seguin Nutrition opened for business the Monday before Thanksgiving.

The nutrition club offers herbal teas, which provide a healthful energy boost, Marcell said. They call them “lifted teas” and they come in an assortment of flavors, she said.

The company also offers products to help with digestive health, sleep and relaxation, immune system support and more, Marcell said. They provide health products for men, women and children, to increase energy and fitness levels, bolster healthy hair and skin and assist with weight management, Marcell said.

“We do free wellness evaluations,” Marcell said. “We offer personal coaching. It’s more like people that want to lose weight, we help them break down what they need to be eating, how much protein, how many calories, etc. like that.”

She uses a Tanita scale that measures a person’s visceral fat, bone mass, metabolic age, muscle mass, body water percentage and percentage of body fat, Marcell said.

Hailing from Seguin and having lived here her whole life, Marcell said she recognized a void in menu options in town and how many of those choices make it difficult for people to maintain healthier lifestyles. That’s where Seguin Nutrition comes in with a viable alternative, she said.

“There’s no healthy options here. It’s all fast food, Mexican food, barbecue,” Marcell said. “I wanted to bring healthy meal options to Seguin.”

The idea came about as she went to a nutrition club in New Braunfels and began to see benefits.

Marcell started a weight-loss program early last year. By October, she had lost 30 pounds and six inches off her waist, she said.

She wanted to show people she knew a way to improve their health and then that spread to her wanting to share the knowledge with the masses, Marcell said.

“I started getting friends and family on it and was approached by my coach to help her in my hometown to start another nutrition club,” she said.

The coach and business partner is Anna Roberts, who opened Motivation Station off of Interstate 35 near Walnut Avenue in New Braunfels with her husband prior to setting sights on Seguin. Even before that, she tried the products and program associated with a nutrition club when she felt she needed to lose some weight and quickly became a believer, Roberts said.

“I jumped onto a nutrition program and went from a size 10 to a size 4. It really changed my outlook on nutrition and food,” she said. “It just gave me another way of looking at food and nutrition and a healthier source of energy other than the energy drinks at the store that are really not good for you.”

She has been involved with nutrition clubs for about seven years, Roberts said. She worked at a club that closed and then decided to open her own spot with her husband, she said.

Providing services in New Braunfels led to word of mouth spreading and people from outside of New Braunfels taking notice, Roberts said.

“I have a lot of customers in New Braunfels that live in Seguin or work in Seguin and were always like, ‘Will you open one in Seguin,’” she said. “It was kind of a mutual situation where we wanted to help our customers there as well and kind of branch out to help another community.”

Now, the Seguin shop has been open several weeks and is doing quite well, both women said. They operate the nutrition club with the help of relatives making the work more like a family affair.

Currently, the shop is open 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. The lunch rush starts about 11:30 a.m.

Shakes cost about $6 or so and are a full meal, Marcell said. One shake provides a full two servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit, she said.

Customers continue to come back for the full assortment of offerings on the menu.

“They like the energy teas but they like the shakes too because they taste like ice cream. They don’t taste like healthy shakes,” Marcell said. “They literally taste like they should be very sinful, but they’re not.”

Seguin Nutrition is located at 106 W. Court St. Find the company on Facebook or Instagram, or call 830-243-0824 to place orders or for more information.

Dalondo Moultrie is the assistant managing editor of the Seguin Gazette. You can e-mail him at dalondo.moultrie@seguingazette.com .