Vegan Action
Jack Egber: Root 66 Café Owner
By Laura McGuiness
To everybody who has ever dreamed of opening their own vegan restaurant, Jack Egber advises, "Don't hesitate."
Egber became the new owner and chef of Santa Fe, New Mexico's Root 66 Vegan Café in October 2021. He sells homemade sandwiches, soups, and other deli options. In addition, Root 66 Vegan Café transforms into Jack's Magic Bakery every Friday. The transformation may actually just be an excuse to bake and sell his vegan challah, however. Challah is a bread of Ashkenazi Jewish origin that is usually made with eggs and is eaten on most Jewish holidays.
"Challah is the last thing I ate before I went vegan," he recounts wistfully. "Months later, I realized I couldn't buy vegan challah anywhere, so I just started experimenting with my own recipe."
The aspiration to perfect his recipe continued into his career as a chef at a silent meditation retreat center, where he started making challah for the guests each night. After eating his vegan challah one night for dinner, a retreatant wrote Egber a note praising the recipe's authenticity.
Since that night, the challah recipe has driven his journey as a chef. The same retreatant who wrote in praise of his challah later hired Egber to cater an entire Shabbat dinner at their private home. Months later Egber began selling his challah (branded as Magic Challah-grams) to the local community by donation.
"Not everybody who bought the challah was vegan, either," Egber explained. "Sometimes they were just people with egg allergies. There were a lot of non-vegan customers."
While completing his undergraduate degree at University of California, Berkeley, Egber attended a JewishVeg Event. "This was my first introduction to veganism," he recalled. "As I got more involved in meditation, mindfulness, and learning about how it connects to my own spirituality, the most prominent concept was non-violence."
He experiences a deep sense of gratitude for a meal free of violence and believes it is extremely easy to connect non-violent teachings with veganism. His time practicing meditation and mindfulness encourages him to continue helping others live a non-violent lifestyle.
The Santa Fe region is still in the early stages of building an active vegan community.
"There are not a lot of vegan restaurants here. It was nice to bring more veganism here and just make connections with people in the community." Egber hopes that he can be a large part of incremental change in Santa Fe and abroad.
For more on Root 66 Vegan Café, Jack's Magic Bakery, and every dog's favorite pop-up, Jack's Magic Barkery, please see: root66.com
Laura McGuiness is a former VRG intern from 2013. A vegan for 19 years, she has worked as a librarian at several major academic and government institutions in both New Mexico and California.
