VALLEJO — Carlos Ortega moved to the U.S. from El Salvador in 2001 without speaking a word of English. Today, he is the proud owner of Sunshine Smoothies and Coffee, a business with two locations in Vallejo that employs ten people, gives back to the community, and is focused on locally sourced, high quality ingredients.
To celebrate his business’ 11th anniversary, Ortega is inviting everyone to the party. On Aug. 29, he will give away 3,000 smoothies at his shop on 2089 Solano Ave. There will be live music, decorations, and seven employees ready to take your order from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The road to successful entrepreneurship was not easy. At one point, Ortega was homeless, but he never gave up on his dream.
When he arrived in the Bay Area more than two decades ago, a friend told him about the Rojas Family Farms, which is located in Fresno County but sells in farmers markets around the Bay Area.
Ortega got hired and started bagging oranges. After a few months, the Rojas family invited him to go to the farm and pick fruit, something he had often done as a child in El Salvador.
In 2006. Ortega got a job at Recology in San Francisco. But he stayed connected to Rojas Family Farms, working there on weekends.
The job at Recology was good, with a stable salary and benefits, but Ortega was restless. “I felt like God was telling me that I had more to give to this country,” he said.
At the farm, he realized a lot of fruit was wasted. “The fruit has to look nice for the farmers market, so if they have a little bruise, they have to throw it away because the customers don’t want it,” Ortega said. “That’s where I got the idea for my business.”
In 2013, with some money saved, he quit his job at Recology to launch his business, sourcing most of his produce locally from Rojas Family Farms and Restaurant Depot.
“I went in blind,” Ortega said. “I was not prepared, I had no education, no college degree, I just had saved a couple of bucks, but I believed in myself and went through with it.”
Several family members worked at Recology, and they couldn’t understand why he would give up a good job with benefits for something so uncertain, but Ortega pushed forward.
It took him a couple of years to get the business going consistently. In 2015, he leased a little drive-through coffee shop at 821 Wilson Ave. At the time it was called Copper Coffee, but Ortega didn’t know much about coffee and he started making smoothies.
“It was hard. Nobody knew me. My savings were running out. My car broke down and I had nowhere to go, so I started sleeping in my shop,” Ortega said, tearing up. “I signed up for the gym, and I was showering there. I couldn’t get a bigger inventory because I didn’t have any money. That’s when the struggle began.”
The Mare Island Causeway is right by the drive-through shop on Wilson Avenue. Ortega used to spend hours looking at the bridge and wondering what to do.
“I was looking at the bridge one day and I thought, ‘This is not forever. One day I’m going to shine,’” Ortega said, “My vision came in and that’s why I renamed the shop Sunshine Smoothies, and why my logo has a bridge on it.”
Business was slow, but a year later a journalist from Vallejo Times-Herald came by, loved the smoothies and wrote an article about the business. After it came out, customers came in droves and the shop prospered.
Ortega got back on his feet. In 2017, he purchased a mobile food truck to take to events, and in 2018 he opened a second location in Pittsburg.
Things were looking good when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Ortega was forced to sell the food truck and close the Pittsburg location. Only the small drive-through shop in Vallejo was allowed to remain open, because it had no indoor space.
Ortega had his daughter in 2021, and was motivated to work hard and keep growing. In 2023, he opened another location on Solano Avenue. Local music stars like LaRussell and Jourdan Jade supported his business with free promotions on social media.
Throughout his journey, Ortega has prioritized giving back to the community. He sponsors the Vallejo PAL Boxing Club, Jesse Bethel High School sports programs, and the girls basketball team at Cal Maritime by donating smoothies before and after matches.
Sunshine Smoothies and Coffee’s most popular drinks are the Super Hulk smoothie, which has apple juice, celery, lime, bananas, honey, spinach, ginger, peaches, mango, cucumber, pineapple and kale, and the Purple Giant smoothie, which adds beets to the combination giving the drink a bright red color.
Before a smoothie, Ortega suggests drinking a spicy ginger shot he created, which has ginger, lime, chamoy (a Mexican sauce) and tajin (a Mexican chili-lime seasoning).
“The ginger shot helps if you’re losing your voice or you’re feeling sick,” he said. “It gives you a boost. If you wake up tired, you drink the smoothie and the ginger shot and it wakes you up. People love it.”
But Sunshine Smoothies and Coffee offers much more than smoothies. It also sells juices, all kinds of coffee drinks and, at the Solano Avenue location, food like acai bowls, salads, sandwiches and wraps.
“I noticed that in every mall they had a Starbucks and a Jamba Juice next to each other,” he said. “So that’s when I got the idea to offer everything in one location.”
Ortega is already thinking of expanding the business again. He wants to buy a food truck so he can bring his mobile shop to events, and eventually open a Sunshine Smoothies and Coffee in every city in Solano County and even beyond.
But for now, he’s focused on the anniversary party on Saturday. He will be there greeting everyone and offering free smoothies to celebrate the community that has supported his business.
“I have people come and tell me, ‘What’s wrong with you, dude? How are you going to make money like that?’” Ortega said. “They don’t understand that it’s not about the money. It’s about having come from another country with nothing, and now you’re creating jobs and opportunities for others. My community built me, and I have to give back.”
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