The Brief

If you have lunch at Follow Your Heart vegan cafe on Sherman Way in Canoga Park, you may see a friendly-looking guy hovering around. He’s there for a few hours every day, doing a little bit of everything.

“It’s kind of my job to eat different things on the menu to ensure consistency. One cook teaches another cook and recipes totally change.”

Take note — that man is not just the food taster. He’s Bob Goldberg, now a wise elder to the vegan food scene in Los Angeles. He began Follow Your Heart with friends in 1970, as a vegetarian hippie hangout in the valley.

Bob Goldberg and his partners

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Courtesy Follow Your Heart

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Today, more than 50 years later, it’s a vegan grocery store and diner, with a college town food co-op vibe, selling plant-based diner food: sandwiches, pot pies, chili cheese fries. And even more importantly, Goldberg has had a massive impact on plant-based eating, creating Vegenaise and starting the Follow Your Heart and Earth Island brands.

The Follow Your Heart cafe first started as a juice bar in the back of Johnny Weissmuller’s American Natural Foods on Owensmouth. Weissmuller was an Olympic gold medalist and star of the Tarzan movies.

In 1973, Goldberg, along with partners Paul Lewin, Spencer Windbiel and Michael Besançon, bought out the market, and got rid of all the meat and dairy products.

“When we first started, this strip was still Antique Row — we’d get thrifted plates from the Salvation Army,” he remembers.

The place soon attracted a loyal following, with people traveling long distances to the West Valley, because back then, as Goldberg says, "vegetarian places were few and far between."

By 1976, they outgrew the store and moved into a former butcher shop, which is the current Sherman Way location.

Questioning authority

"I grew up in a family of grocers,” says Goldberg. His grandfather Sam Kapitanoff opened Crystal Foods shortly after the turn of the century when he arrived in Beloit, Wisconsin from Eastern Europe — “very New Agey name,” he laughs. He’d visit the store as a kid with his parents from Chicago, an hour-and-a-half away.

The other side of Goldberg’s family was in the model airplane kits industry. In those days, Carl Goldberg Products was a hugely inspiring company for would-be aeronautical engineers. However, model planes later fell out of popularity in the 70's with the emergence of the space program. “I was a national champion as a child,” he says with a smile.

Chef Proof Fujiyama-Ahira and owner Bob Goldberg at Follow Your Heart Market & Cafe in Canoga Park.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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In 1967, Goldberg got drafted into the army. Initially, he thought he’d have to travel overseas, but he received a last minute change of orders to join the Army Band. (Goldberg had played trumpet since he was 10 and studied music at Indiana University).

Goldberg says he wasn’t yet critical of the war in Vietnam. “It was a bad time — a turbulent time. But I was on board for everything. I didn't question authority ... that came later.”

In the barracks he was assigned to a room with one other guy who had the "opposite of my background.” He’d been in trouble with the law and a judge had given him the choice to go to jail or enlist. His barrack-mate showed him something rolled up in aluminum foil — he didn't know what it was. "I'd never seen marijuana,” he says. They went into a closet and got high.

A moment later Bob remembers sitting down on his bed and thinking “‘Everything I know was wrong’ — it just hit me. I remember an overwhelming feeling that I'd been lied to.”

In the Army Band he’d travel to midwestern states playing “a lot of parades,” Bob pauses, “but also Taps at a lot of funerals.” This experience made him see the impact of what war can do, which led to his embrace of meat-less eating.

“I became vegetarian for moral reasons. I was against unnecessary killing. And sometimes the practice of killing animals can lead to the killing of people.”

Out of the Army, in 1969, Goldberg drove across the country to Los Angeles. He spent the first few weeks on a buddy’s couch in Woodland Hills before finding a place up the street from Johnny Weissmuller’s.

Goldberg was glad to find somewhere he could get camaraderie and vegetarian food. “I was meeting my people and getting an education in living in a more peaceful way.”

A promotional image for Vegenaise that shows the product when it was first introduced in wide release in 1995.

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Courtesy Follow Your Heart

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The birth of Vegenaise

Their customers included many seeking a more spiritual parth, and would suggest books, which they’d sell in the corner of the shop. The Whole Earth Catalog, books on environmentalism or eastern philosophy, Hindu- buddhism, the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Michael Besançon was a follower of a guru whose followers’ culinary practice excluded meat, fowl, and eggs (though dairy was okay). So the menu at Follow Your Heart applied that approach to their familiar diner fare.

But they wanted to serve that part of the community that didn’t eat eggs. And without mayonnaise, the cafe’s sandwiches were less than appealing. “They still needed a lube," laughs Goldberg.

So they set about finding a mayo alternative. They went through lots of options before stumbling upon a guy who’d created a product called “Lecinaise” which was supposedly an egg-free substance made from lecithin, which helped emulsify lipids.

They began using it in the restaurant. But a few months later they started hearing that there were actually eggs in this “Lecinaise.” Eventually, Goldberg says “the guy got busted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture — he was soaking jars of regular mayonnaise to get the labels off and then putting his own label on top!”

The fried chicken sandwich from Follow Your Heart Market & Cafe in Canoga Park.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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The sprouts sandwich love plate, fried chicken, reuben and club sandwiches from Follow Your Heart Market & Cafe in Canoga Park.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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They immediately had to look for other options. But when they approached food manufacturers, they were told an egg-free mayo alternative wasn’t possible.

So Goldberg started experimenting. What could be a good plant-based solution? He tried mixing various oils and fats trying to find the best way to make them cohere. “It took a lot of trials, my whole fridge [was] full of various stages,” he says.

He finally came up with the answer in a dream. “I bolted up, and then sat in bed, waiting two hours for light — then mixed tofu scraps in a blender and combined them with oil,” he says, which gave the consistency he was looking for. Eventually they replaced the tofu with isolated soy proteins — and began making it themselves, as Vegenaise.

“We didn’t want to be a manufacturer, but that became the only option,” he says.

It was so popular that in 1988, Follow Your Heart started a manufacturing division, Earth Island, which expanded from Vegenaise into other plant- based products like salad dressings, dips, and cheeses.

It was highly successful — but around that time the original Follow Your Heart partnership started to dissolve. Goldberg says “we all wanted to do different things. Like many bands we broke up. We lasted about as long as The Beatles.”

Goldberg and Lewin bought out their other partners. Goldberg says “Spencer went into early retirement, and Michael went on to become an executive at Whole Foods.”

Vegetarian to vegan

At that time Follow Your Heart and their Earth Island products were vegetarian, which meant they made some dairy products in their factories.

But when they started making white label products for Trader Joe’s, they were forced to wrestle with whether to go vegan. Trader Joe’s Caesar and Blue Cheese salad dressings had been made with a plant-based rennet. But when that became unavailable, they faced a choice.

"I wasn't comfortable with the company using a natural rennet — the enzyme used to coagulate cheese — from the intestine of a baby cow when the vegan one ran out,” he says.

They ultimately decided to give up that part of the business, and became completely plant-based. “I wasn't willing to be involved in the slaughter of animals.”

He says they walked away from millions. "We saw a short-term drop in sales, but eventually it paid off.”

Goldberg spent nearly 30 years building Earth Island. In that time, their products became available at grocery stores across the country and around the world. Their offerings helped spread the ubiquity of plant-based eating to a new generation that could now more easily access vegan food.

In 2020, Bob's long-time friend and business partner, Paul Lewin, unexpectedly passed away. "His passing was a big part of why I was ready to close that chapter of my life" says Goldberg "as it was something that we had done together for 50 years, and without him, it just wasn’t the same". So in 2021, he sold Earth Island for an undisclosed amount to French food-product corporation Danone, famous for their yogurt, who also had a dairy-free division, including the plant-based milk alternative, Silk.

At the time, Goldberg felt like he had spent enough time at the factory. “It was a good thing — but it was just so big,” he says. “I wasn’t having as much fun as the first ten years with the four partners behind the bar. I didn’t know everyone on the staff anymore. I didn’t know our customers, it was all big grocers. It wasn’t the same personal experience.”

Part of the sale required Bob to stay on at Earth Island/Danone for an extra year to help the transition, but now Bob is back where it all started at Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park.

He still has an eye to the future, seeing trends and wanting to be part of them.

"I have a sense, and a vision that Canoga Park is beginning a real renaissance of development, with the Rams building a training facility and Warner 2035. If you look around, this was an almost affordable area. Over the next twenty years it's gonna be very much in demand. We’re hanging in there — we want to be a part of the next phase.”

Diners eat in the cafe at Follow Your Heart Market & Cafe in Canoga Park.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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They own the building across the parking lot, which still says “Mr Jack’s Wig Shop” (which was never actually a business, just the set design from the movie Licorice Pizza).

In that space they are going to build out a bakery and a coffee roaster. “We still have our wholesale bakery — but we want to get into the retail side,” says Goldberg.

When I visited Follow Your Heart to interview Goldberg recently, we had a lunch of plant-based Reubens. Afterwards, he gave me a copy of his 2020 book “The Vegenaise Cookbook, Great Food That’s Vegan, Too” and signed it “To Josh my great new friend. Integrity is the answer.”

For Goldberg, integrity means “making sure that one’s actions are congruent with one’s beliefs. That you are living in your truth. And when you aren’t, those relationships get fractured. Integrity is what makes things cohere.”

Kinda like Vegenaise.

A federal judge on Tuesday held the Department of Homeland Security in contempt for allegedly slow-rolling an order to create digital copies of communications from personal and government cell phones used by immigration agents during operations in the Los Angeles area last year.

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong in the Central District of California previously ordered the federal government in January to expedite imaging the personal cell phones of more than 800 agents involved in controversial immigration raids in Los Angeles in 2025.

Judge Frimpong imposed a fine of $500 per day on the federal government until it complies with the order to turn over phones as part of discovery and reimburse plaintiffs’ attorneys for the legal costs of getting the records.

Attorneys for DHS admitted in court in June that the agency had not provided the records. They told the judge they were processing the government devices at a rate of three phones every two weeks, which plaintiffs noted would take nearly four years to complete.

Attorneys representing immigrants caught up in Operation At Large — the name given to the Trump administration’s Los Angeles immigration crackdown last year — argue the phones may contain evidence of a pattern of racial profiling by federal agents.

Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in May that the Department of Homeland Security “simply proceeded to thwart” Frompong’s order “by dragging their feet on imaging government-issued cell phones and by openly defying the order as to personal phones.”

Last month, ACLU attorneys asked Frimpong to issue another order that would prohibit agents from detaining people based on their race. They cited text messages and body camera footage in which agents used racial slurs, including “wet and “tonks,” to identify working-class Latinos to stop, according to court records.

“Not only are federal agents violating the Constitution on the streets, the government is violating court orders by intentionally withholding critical evidence about its immigration enforcement operations.” said Mayra Joachin with the ACLU of Southern California.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

L.A. City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced seven motions Tuesday, all geared toward providing immediate and long-term relief for community members who’ve been hurt by the aftermath of the Lineage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights.

According to Jurado, the legislative package is centered around three priorities:

• “Immediate relief and cleanup”
• "Accountability, transparency and site safeguards”
• “Long-term oversight and community power”

Jurado is calling for a Mitigation Response Fund of up to $10 million to provide aid for affected residents and small businesses that have lost revenue as the neighborhood continues dealing with foul odors, flies, rats and other vermin. Jurado also wants to see higher penalties for corporate negligence, and create a commission to advise L.A.’s city leadership on environmental justice policy.

After the fire in mid-June, tons of food at the cold storage warehouse were left to rot. Now, more than a month later, community members are still dealing with odors and pests, which have disrupted local businesses, community spaces and everyday quality of life.

Local activists and community members say the Lineage fire aftermath is part of a long legacy of environmental injustice in Boyle Heights. In recent decades, residents have also dealt with pungent smells from rendering plants in the neighboring city of Vernon. And up until 2015, Vernon was also home to Exide, a battery recycling facility that contaminated the soil of thousands of homes in surrounding communities with lead. The taxpayer-funded cleanup for that issue is still ongoing. Lineage also has several facilities in the city of Vernon.

Jurado’s proposed commission “can serve as an interdisciplinary body to identify and start to protect our communities from historical harms that continue to function as standard practice today,” said mark! Lopez, a community organizer at East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice.

Community members will have a chance to provide public comment on Jurado’s motions before they move to a full council vote.

In a statement, Jurado said recovery "cannot mean removing debris and moving on.” In her view, it must also involve the “aggressive pursuit of every recoverable dollar from responsible parties” and "give communities that have carried Los Angeles' environmental burdens real power over what happens next."

Lineage President and CEO Greg Lehmkuhl previously said in a statement that he cannot estimate how long the cleanup will take. “What we can tell you is this: there are people on site working on this recovery 24/7,” he added.

L.A. County will provide assistance grants to small businesses that suffered financial loss from the Lineage warehouse fire that burned for a week in June in Boyle Heights. The fire's aftermath has many in the community seeking help to recover.

Why it matters

The county surveyed business owners in the area who said they are continuing to face a loss of customers and revenue amid persisting odor from food in the Boyle Heights warehouse that continues to rot in the summer heat. The fire started June 17 and burned until June 24. It initially generated significant air quality hazards and prompted evacuations.

About the funds

The grants from Supervisor Hilda Solis’ discretionary budget will be disbursed within 45 days — and then draw from countywide funds if needed. The county will also seek reimbursement for the grants from Lineage. The Department of Public Health and County Counsel will also evaluate new fees and penalties for businesses that pose environmental or health risks in L.A. County. Some fee increases could fund county assistance for future economic disasters.

Who is eligible

Small businesses within the affected area will be able to apply for the grants. The county is looking to prioritize initial funding for businesses that have not already received emergency financial support from other organizations.

More details to come

The Board of Supervisors and Department of Economic Opportunity will announce more about the amount of assistance and how to apply when those details are made final. Affected business owners and residents can find more information on the L.A. County Recovers website.

What to have ready

Existing documentation from L.A. County recommends you collect the following documentation of any damage.

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Courtesy L.A. Department of Economic Opportunity

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Courtesy L.A. Department of Economic Opportunity

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The Los Angeles City Council voted 13-1 on Tuesday to put a measure on the November ballot that will ask voters whether homes affected by the Palisades Fire should be exempt from the city’s controversial “mansion tax.”

If passed, the exemption would apply to the sale of homes damaged or destroyed by the fire. The exemption would last until early 2030, five years from the date of the fire.

This could potentially reduce the tax’s revenue up to 6% — or $32 million each year — according to a May 2026 report from the L.A. Housing Department.

How the ‘mansion tax’ works 

The “mansion tax,” officially called Measure ULA, is a tiered tax on real estate selling for $5.4 million or more. The tax, which was passed by voters in 2022, funds programs such as rental assistance, eviction defense and affordable housing construction in the city.

The measure has fierce defenders, as well as staunch critics. A statewide ballot measure sought to kill the tax before it was pulled by supporters earlier this year in exchange for a legislative deal in Sacramento.

State and local lawmakers have considered reducing the tax or exempting newly constructed apartment buildings. Their ideas have been guided by economic studies that found the tax was slowing down housing development in the city. So far, none of those reforms have mustered enough support to pass.

Where council members stand

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Highland Park, Chinatown and Westlake, previously spoke against the measure’s scope at a City Council meeting on July 1.

“Any exemption should only be for homeowners whose primary residence was destroyed, and people who genuinely need help rebuilding, not LLCs, investors or people with a portfolio of properties,” Hernandez said. “We had the opportunity to write those protections into this ordinance, and we didn’t.”

Hernandez criticized her colleagues for shooting down the post-fire eviction protections she proposed after tenants living in her district lost work as gardeners and nannies in the Pacific Palisades.

“When wealthy property owners need relief, we’re willing to bend over backwards,” she said. “But when working class people and tenants need protection, suddenly our hands are tied and the political will is not there.”

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, voiced support for the measure at the same meeting.

“Putting this tax on these folks who are trying to recover and reckoning with the fact that some of them just aren’t coming home, is just unspeakably cruel,” Park said. “It’s an exemption that applies in very narrow circumstances to original owners and first transactions for five years, only for residential properties. This is the least we can do as this community continues to recover.”

In Tuesday’s meeting, Hernandez cast the lone vote against placing the measure on the November ballot. Thirteen council members supported the move. Councilmember Curren Price was not present for the vote.

What happens next 

L.A. voters will have the final say on whether Palisades homeowners will be exempt from the tax. The proposal needs a simple majority of support from voters in the upcoming November general election to pass.

How to keep tabs on the L.A. City Council

The L.A. City Council tends to meet Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Meetings typically start at 10 a.m.

Here’s how you can follow along:

• Attend in person: The council typically meets at City Hall, Council Chambers, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles
• Watch the live broadcast
• Here’s how to submit a comment or contact the council