Mother’s is moving

Mother’s Market and Kitchen is moving out of the location it’s called home for more than 30 years. But it’s not going far.

Mother’s is taking over the old Borders bookstore that closed recently on Newport Boulevard. The new site is under construction by Carlile Coatsworth Architects Inc., and Mother’s is expected to be all moved in by June.

“We’re bummed. Mother’s is awesome,” said Eric Santana, the manager of Surfside Sports store, one of the market’s neighbors on 17th Street. “Mother’s draws the biggest crowd.”

Mother’s has been looking to either improve its location or move to a new one, said Deborah Rubino, assistant to the market’s chairman of the board. When Mother’s heard about the closing of Borders, the market decided to move there.

“We outran this location,” Rubino said. “We knew we were either going to stay and improve or move, but we really wanted to move to a bigger place. We’ve been really happy here; this has been our home for 31 years. It was a hard decision, but we felt like our customers were asking for more and we needed more space to put those products in.”

Mother’s in Costa Mesa is the flagship store for the six chain stores in Orange County. In 1978, a group of family members and friends who were part of the Yoga center in Costa Mesa wanted to find a way to bring customers products that weren’t readily available, said Rubino, who’s also a longtime employee at Mother’s.

The end result of the group’s effort is Mother’s, a market and restaurant in one that specializes in selling specialty items like vegan, gluten free, raw, low fat and organic food. Mother’s also has a large selection of supplements, Rubino said.

The goals is to take to the new location the same feel and environment the current location has, Rubino said.

“The challenge is we have a lot of loyal customers and they like the feel and warmth of this location, and the challenge is we want to create that feeling in that new location,” she said. “We want to keep all the best parts of this and add more products to make it easier to shop.”

The new location will have a bigger restaurant and will sell fresh chicken and fish.