Healthy as a Motha: The woman behind a booming vegan Brooklyn business | amNewYork

"If you don't get your stuff together, you're not going to graduate with your friends. After struggling through high school, the then-17-year-old Ramdass wanted to ensure she would graduate with her friends. Heading to a local Barnes and Noble bookstore, Ramdass had one goal: Buy a book, because at that age, she had never read a novel from start to finish."

"She finished the book, highlighting the abuse in the animal industry, in one day and it inspired her to become a vegetarian. It would also begin a years-long journey that led to opening her own restaurant. Long story short, that was the beginning of me going down a rabbit hole, said Ramdass."

"During the Covid-19 Pandemic, now as a mom, Ramdass found most of her time cooking for her children. She began recording herself on Instagram cooking healthy meals for her kids, and began gaining a mom following. Ramdass's husband encouraged her to start selling her food, and for the next three years she began to host pop-ups with her food."

"It's an ode to our mothers, she said. I didn't go to culinary school, I learned with my mom and my husband's mom. Ramdass says this is where her Caribbean and Trinidadian Plant Cuisine originates. HAAM opened in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2023."

Yesenia Ramdass's journey began when her high school English teacher's warning motivated her to graduate with her class. At seventeen, she purchased her first complete novel, Skinny Bitch, which exposed animal industry abuse and inspired her vegetarianism. This sparked years of exploration into plant-based living, leading her to write about vegetarianism and restaurants in her Washington Heights neighborhood. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ramdass began cooking healthy meals for her children and sharing videos on Instagram, building a following of mothers. Encouraged by her husband, she hosted pop-up food events for three years. In 2023, she opened Healthy as a Motha (HAAM) in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, featuring Caribbean and Trinidadian plant-based cuisine learned from her mother and mother-in-law rather than culinary school.

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