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Eden Almog and her family found a space, renovated it and opened the business in around 6 months.She hopes to soon expand her hours to stay open late weekend nights and add outdoor seating.
HENDERSONVILLE – Eden’s Garden, a new spot offering frozen treats on Hendersonville’s Main Street, is open for business.
In a tiny storefront, barely more than twice as wide as the entry door, Eden Almog, 43, serves fruit smoothies and acai sorbet bowls.
Acai (pronounced ah-sah-EE) is a deep purple berry that grows on a palm tree native to Brazil.
Many new customers weren’t familiar with the trendy health food, noted for its antioxidants and its tart, earthy flavor, but feedback has been good nonetheless, she said.
“My menu is still limited, we’re still getting all the different flavors worked out. I want to lean more into having healthy (items), adding kale and spinach into the smoothies,” she said.
When Almog and her husband, Tomer Almog, moved to Hendersonville from Los Angeles two years ago with their two youngest kids (two older kids are in college in California), they noticed an empty niche.
“There’s no place to get a protein shake after my workout (since the Hendersonville) Mountain Juicery closed down with Helene. We decided to just take the leap,” she told the Times-News March 24.
They set up shop between The Dugout Taproom and Grill and the Goldsmith by Rudi jewelers at 432 N. Main St., with a décor scheme of flowers, natural wood and tropical fronds.
Almog has three part-time employees, along with her kids Ilan, 12, and Mia, 10, who help out around the shop afternoons and weekends.
“We really wanted a place that the teenagers can come after school and have something that’s healthy and substantial … It’s not a heavy ice cream sundae,” she said.
Top sellers so far are the Heavenly Nectar smoothie, with pineapple, mango and peaches ($7.99); the Carolina Coastal bowl, with acai sorbet, strawberries, pineapple, coconut and granola ($9.99); and the Choco-licious bowl, topped with strawberries, bananas, chocolate chips, cacao nibs, peanuts and Nutella ($9.99), she said.
There’s also sorbet flavored with ube, matcha, passion fruit, cacao and blue spirulina (a type of algae with a taste similar to a piña colada and a bright blue color).
“Me, personally, I like dragon fruit, or the cacao one, but people are usually torn,” Almog’s daughter, Mia Almog, 10, told the Times-News.
The long, narrow storefront used to be an alley before being enclosed and converted into a cheesecake shop and then a wine shop before the Almogs leased it, she said.
They started planning to open the business in September 2025, renovated the space with help from Almog’s father, Kim Darigan, and soft-opened March 14, she said.
Almog was a paramedic before a neck injury forced her to quit the ambulance crew a decade or so ago.
Her husband, a software engineer, used to own restaurants back in California decades ago, but Almog is starting from scratch in learning the food service business.
“I would not have taken on a restaurant, like a full restaurant, because it’s a lot of work and a lot of food waste and the stoves and the grease,” she said.
The simplicity of the smoothie model, with a back-of-house centered on a bank of three industrial blenders and a slide-top freezer, streamlines the business and makes it manageable, especially in such a small space.
Eden’s was open 12-5 p.m. seven days a week, as of March 24, but as business picks up, Almog plans to expand them to meet demand, staying open until as late as 10 or 11 p.m. on weekend nights.
She’s planning to add two tables on the sidewalk once a city permit comes through.
George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at GFRussell@gannett.com.
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