Staff of Life Natural Foods, a Santa Cruz landmark, has grown from a small natural foods bakery into a major natural foods supermarket.
Started in 1969 by Richard Josephson and Gary Bascou, Staff of Life has a complete bakery with many gluten free and vegan choices, natural foods deli with made from scratch specialities, full butcher and fish department, organic produce department, huge bulk foods department, massive supplement and health and beauty department, and our Cafe del Sol that offers coffee drinks, pastries and fresh organic juices and smoothies.
We are very proud our store has been officially certified by the City of Santa Cruz as a Green Building! Be sure to follow the Proud To Be Green link below to find out more about why our building is green.
Open Air Market
From yesteryear’s organics, to the future of the green movement!
Enter our certified Green Building into an open air market with fresh organic produce, beautiful flower and garden department, case stack goods and Cafe del Sol, where you will find a variety of coffee drinks, organic juice and smoothies and to die for homemade pastries as well as gluten free treats. Order a latte or a fresh pressed juice and enjoy our covered outside seating. Meet some friends anytime of the day for an organic smoothie or bring the kids for a morning treat including a wide selection of gluten free and vegan pastries.
Plenty of parking
LOTS OF ROOM
You will find plenty of off street parking in our large parking lot with an entrance on both Soquel Avenue and Darwin Street. We have special parking for low emission vehicles and plenty of convenient racks to hold your bikes.
Light Harvesting
DOING OUR BEST FOR THE PLANET
As you shop Staff of Life Natural Market, don’t forget to look up. What you will see is a collection of skylights that are just one part of our Energy Management System. Through Daylight Harvesting we utilize available daylight to reduce the amount of electrical light used in our store.
Using a combination of skylights and an automatic control, electric lights are turned off when there is enough daylight to sufficiently light the store and turned on when the daylight levels are too low. Each watertight skylight is fitted with a prismatic dome outside of the building and a diffusing lens inside the building which “spreads out” the light. The diffusing lens softens the light and eliminates the heat transference that can affect perishable items in the store.
All of the coolers and freezers share a six variable speed compressor system. This means we conserve energy and we save on our PG&E bill, which allows us to keep our prices low. Our system also utilizes Heat Reclamation from the condensers to preheat the hot water for the building!
Clean air regeneration
BREATHE EASY
At Staff of Life we believe in clean food and clean air. Our store is equipped with a clean air system that has a series of 25 destratification fans and filters throughout the building to purify the air. This system keeps our air clean, odor free and at a constant temperature throughout the store throughout the day.
Clean water, in and out
KEEPING OUR OCEANS CLEAN
Staff of Life Natural Foods has been named a “Clean Ocean Business” by the City of Santa Cruz Public Works department. We received this recognition for compliance with the City of Santa Cruz Best Management Practices to help protect water and wildlife from pollution. Clean Ocean Businesses help the city meet their objectives of reducing pollution from storm water protecting local creeks, the San Lorenzo River, and the Monterey Bay national Marine Sanctuary.
Located at the edges of the parking lot is our Bio Swales that filters all the water run off from our parking lot through a series of plants and soil to purify it before it goes back into the ground and eventually the Monterey Bay.
Electric car hookups
PLUG IT IN
Staff of Life has always been on the forefront of the natural foods movement and that is carried through with our commitment to low emission and electric vehicles. We have had an electric car hookup at our store since 2012, long before it was the norm. Our electric car charging station is operated by Charge Point and is open to anyone that has a Charge Point account.
