When I visited Café Bliss, owner Heather Cunliffe and her cute four month-old baby took a few minutes to sit down and tell me about her business. The mostly raw and vegan café will celebrate its eighth anniversary this summer. Cunliffe also co-owns a higher-end veg restaurant called Be Love with her brother.

Cunliffe grew up on Salt Spring Island, but moved to Victoria as a teen. One winter she went to work at Tree of Life, a holistic wellness and spiritual retreat center in Arizona. The center was founded by doctor and rabbi Gabriel Cousens, who uses raw, organic, vegan food as one tool to restore people’s health. Cunliffe worked in Tree of Life’s kitchen and garden.

“I came home all juiced up about raw food and inspiring other people to recognize they had control over their health,” said Cunliffe. She credits good nutrition, along with yoga and meditation, for her own glowing good health.

Café Bliss’ specialties include raw pizzas and burgers, chocolates, treats, and salads. The smoothie menu boasts drinks like earth blood tonic and the warrior smoothie. I had the Bliss Salad, composed of delicious fresh vegetables, plus a few olives and avocado chunks to give it some heft.

The local yoga community has embraced the vegan café, Cunliffe said. However, she’s not hardline. She incorporates lots of raw and vegan food into her diet, but follows neither path exclusively. In such a cool, damp client, some hot food does a body good.