PROFILE

Hola, Ohla!

Lauren Schwalb’s healthy alternatives taste like the real thing ›

It’s not uncommon for newborns to be allergic to something their mothers are eating. To address the problem, pediatricians ask breastfeeding mothers to cut from their diets the common culprits — dairy, soy and gluten, to name a few. Mothers stop consuming specific items, one at a time, until the problems subside. That’s what happened to neighbor Lauren Schwalb and her then-newborn Hadley.

“I threw in the towel and moved my daughter to formula,” Schwalb says. “It just felt impossible. I was like, how do I do this?”

Both mother and daughter ended up healthy. But the process made Schwalb curious about what was in the food she was feeding her family. As she sifted through her pantry, she realized that almost everything she had contained ingredients she wasn’t supposed to eat.

Then last year, Schwalb and her husband, Stephen, were having dinner with friends, and the Whole30 diet came up as a topic. Stephen announced he was going to try it.

“I am a competitive person by nature, so there was no way I was going to let him do this without doing it with him,” Schwalb says.

Acceptable foods in their new diet included fruits, vegetables and lean proteins. With no gluten allowed, and in a family that loves Tex-Mex, Schwalb began looking for alternatives to the carb-heavy staples of that cuisine. She couldn’t find them, so she began experimenting with almond flour, using it to make tortillas. Her coworkers were the taste-testers.

“I want to be authentic, and I don’t want to be scary,” Schwalb says. “I want people to know that eating healthy can also taste good.”

Eventually, people began requesting

Schwalb’s tortillas. It wasn’t just her friends. At the Dallas Farmers Market, she arrived with about 100 packages of eight tortillas to sell. She left with none. “I thought it could be a business from day one, honestly,” Schwalb says. “But I knew there were lots of things I had to do to continue to prove the concept out.” She did market research and wrote a business plan. Then she found a food scientist, ingredient suppliers and a co-packer. That last one was challenging to locate because Schwalb was selling a new brand of perishable products. She didn’t want to make a huge investment and end up wasting food. Plus, the demand for the manufacturers was already elevated due to shortages caused by the pandemic. Eventually, she found a co-packer in New Braunfels. Ohla! foods started with tortillas and expanded to chips. The brand is now I want people to available at Central Market, where Schwalb does most know that eating of her shopping, sometimes with Hadley and her older healthy can also daughter, Olivia. “They get in their cart, taste good. and they get their balloons,” Schwalb says. “And then they see mommy’s product on the shelf, and it’s the coolest feeling in the world.” Ohla! isn’t just a play on words. It also represents her family. The “o” and “h” stand for her daughters’ names. “La” is a nickname Schwalb’s friends have for her, and the exclamation point is for her husband. Schwalb has made a business out of healthy alternatives and doesn’t crave junk foods, but she hasn’t sworn them off. When the situation presents itself, like at birthday parties, the Schwalbs will still eat cake. She’s developing additional flavors for the chips. Eventually, she’d like to branch out to other foods including pasta and pizza, or even formulate snacks like Cheez-Its. “What I really aim for is things that taste like the real deal,” Schwalb says.

Time-lapse:

PRESTON ROYAL SHOPPING CENTER

Story by RENEE UMSTED

Photography, clockwise from above: Preston Royal Shopping Center, Princi Italia and Neuhaus by Danny Fulgencio. Opposite page: Royal China by Rasy Ran.

Those who’ve been here a while know Preston Royal has changed quite a bit over the decades. It used to have a movie theater, but in its place now sits a liquor store. When Carol Short was growing up here, there wasn’t a plethora of sit-down restaurants. Visitors could choose from places like Burger King, an ice cream parlor called SALLY B, the soda fountain at DOUGHERTY’S and EL CHICO.

“As we grew up, there weren’t that many families anymore,” says Short, who worked for the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce for decades. “But it’s certainly turned back to now where families are there moving into those larger, new homes. The neighborhood has cycled.”

Short guesses the biggest fuss over a restaurant leaving was spurred on by El Chico, which was owned by the Cuellar family. When one business left, another seemed to quickly replace it.

PRINCI ITALIA opened its Preston Royal location in 2011. Before then, suite 707 housed POPOLOS CAFE, an Italian cafe and bakery. It first started serving pizza and pasta in 1993 and remained until late 2009.

NEUHAUS CAFE arrived at suite 626 in 2004. Owner Mervyn Sacher says Preston Royal is one of the best intersections in the city. When the tornado struck our neighborhood in

2019, Nehaus was barely touched, though other shops just steps away lost windows and roofs. Before Sacher set up shop, suite 626 was home to a children’s clothing store.

SHORT STOP TO GO first opened in Snider Plaza in 1995, and it expanded to a second location in Preston Royal in 2010. Before Short Stop moved into suite 101, the space was home to a JAMBA JUICE, starting in 2004. And NEW YORK BAGEL & DELI occupied the store prior to then, opening in 1995.

STARBUCKS opened on the corner in 1995, and it’s still here.

TJ’S SEAFOOD MARKET & GRILL has a couple locations in Dallas, but its Preston Royal spot opened for business in 2014. It took over the space of the PURPLE COW RESTAURANT, which was established in 1998. SMOKEY JOHN’S BAR-B-Q was the previous tenant, and the latest occupancy records show it was open in 1995.

ROYAL CHINA has been a staple in Preston Royal since 1974. Though it’s undergone remodeling and changes to the menu, it’s still a family business, having served neighbors for generations. But before the restaurant moved in, a steakhouse was located there.

ZOËS KITCHEN has been around since 2010. It opened in suite 104, taking the place of ZINSKY’S DELI, which closed in 2009.

EINSTEIN BROS. BAGELS opened in 2010 in its own building.

SHAKE SHACK came in 2017, replacing a FEDEX office.

EATZI’S MARKET & BAKERY set up shop in 2017 next to THE TOY MAVEN.

Several of the spots at Preston Royal are newcomers. BOTOLINO GELATO opened in 2019 in the former PINKBERRY spot. FLOWER CHILD is also just a couple years old, moving into the area the same year as Botolino. And PUBLIC TACO took over a space next to Neuhaus in 2019.

PRESSED opened a new location at Preston Royal in July. The space formerly housed STEEL CITY POPS and BASKIN-

ROBBINS.

BLAST FROM THE PAST:

Preston Royal was once home to JUICE STOP, BAGELSTEIN’S and CANTINA LAREDO. BARNES & NOBLE closed this year, but before it opened, BEST THAI was there.

COMING SOON:

FISH CITY GRILL, which has been closed since 2019, is expected to reopen by early December.