More than 200 customers attended the soft opening of Everdale Plant-Based Café & Gelato in Melbourne, Australia.

The café, located in the suburb of Springvale, is owned and run by Adventist couple Henry and Jullian Ponco who attend Melbourne Asian Seventh-day Adventist church. After 14 years of successfully running a media ministry, Ponco sought a new direction in life and a way to serve God with his wife in the health industry. Following his childhood passion and a desire to bring joy to others, he enrolled in a patisserie course at Dandenong TAFE. After graduating and months of trials, he began selling plant-based ice cream with reduced sugar and calories under the name “Everdale” at Sunday markets, which became a local hit.

After years of selling plant-based ice-cream, Ponco decided to expand his business into a plant-based café. Everdale Plant-based Café & Gelato aims to be a center of influence for the community in Springvale by being a space where people can share food and fellowship.

“The Bible calls us to ‘go and make disciples’, but we realized that our social circle outside the church was small,” Ponco said. “So we wanted to create a ‘center of influence’ to reach more people and, hopefully, bring them to the church.

“Inspired by Ellen White’s words that ‘we should establish small plants in all our cities, which will serve as centers of influence’, we envisioned a self-sustaining center. This would generate income to support local missions and help those in need, without relying on church offerings.”

Everdale Plant-based Café & Gelato offers a diverse menu featuring more than eight different types of vegan burgers, a variety of sides, refreshing drinks, and more than 10 vegan gelato flavors, including options with no added sugar.

“In the future, we hope to run programs to engage even more people, with the profits supporting our mission work,” Ponco said. “In our first month, we were blessed with around 1000 customers and 86 five-star reviews, making us one of the top-rated places on Google. By God’s grace, we hope to welcome even more people in the future.”

The original article was published on the South Pacific Division news site, Adventist Record.