In 1902, the first Sanitarium café opened its doors, in Pitt Street, Sydney. Throughout the 1900s Sanitarium continued to open vegetarian cafes and health food shops throughout capital cities in Australia and New Zealand.

The café concept was designed to introduce people to a better way of living and were well received by the community. One customer was so impressed when he visited the Sydney store that he wrote asking for another meal to be prepared so that he could show his friends, and requested the meal be sent to him 300 miles away!

Over a six-month period in 1904, the café served 8,000 customers, and by 1939 99,723 customers were served in six months.

The stores flourished for decades in Australia and New Zealand until the 1960s, when they were eventually closed and Sanitarium shifted its focus to sharing health and wellbeing knowledge through the formation of the Nutrition Education Service, established in 1987 – which is now known as the Sanitarium Nutrition Service.

The Sanitarium café story has not come completely to a close. The journey began again in 2008, when we opened up Kitchen, by Sanitarium, a whole foods café in Eagle St, Brisbane. Our new corporate health consultancy team, Cultivate, and the Sanctuary Health and Wellbeing Village, opening mid-August 2010, are other ways in which we continue to assist in improving the health and wellbeing of those in our communities.