The owners of the Squeez’D juice bar on Avenue C and 26th Street in Bayonne plan to continue their focus on wellness by opening a new yoga studio three blocks down the street in mid-August.
Bayonne residents Carolyn Texidor and Victor Rodriguez got into the juice business in Hudson County five years ago by selling their products at farmer’s markets in Jersey City. They progressed to a juice truck, then opened Juice’D at 586 Avenue C. They’ll open BayOhm Yoga at 494 Avenue C next month, near the 22nd Street light rail station.
“I want to share the amazing things that can happen when you practice yoga and meditation while bringing community together as well,” said Texidor, who has been teaching free yoga classes at First Street Park over the summer.
Texidor began studying yoga after she was diagnosed three years ago with rheumatoid arthritis, hypothyroidism, and Sjorgren’s, an autoimmune disease.
“I was pretty much on a downhill slope when it came to my health, until I took a gentle yoga class and I haven’t stopped since,” she recalled.
Her studio will offer classical Sivananda Hatha Yoga, Vinyasa, restorative, gentle, Yin Yoga, meditation, workshops, and lectures.
Bayonne has welcomed many new businesses to go with its rapidly rising development — thanks in part to four light rail stations that opened along the waterfront in the last 20 years. Kushner Real Estate recently announced that it has secured a construction loan to develop 200 luxury residential units near 45th Street station. But this is only one of dozens of new developments and businesses underway. Several developers have proposed residential and commercial developments on the site of the former Military Ocean Terminal.
“The people of Bayonne have welcomed us in such a way [at the juice bar], I decided to open the yoga studio here as well,” Texidor said. But she also suggested that because of the rapid development, other business owners should get in fast.
“They’d have to do it now before the same thing happens here that has happened in Jersey City,” she said, “incredible commercial rent hikes.”
Texidor got her teacher training at the Sivananda Yoga Farm ashram, in Grass Valley, California – which meant “spending 30 days and nights sleeping in a tent, practicing asana for 4 hours a day and meditating for just over 2 to 3 hours per day,” she said. “It was incredible and it changed my life.”
Find out more at the BayOhm Yoga website.
