On a cold February day in 2024, Karen Sullivan pulled over outside a vacant Port Jefferson storefront and peered through the window.
She hadn’t been planning to open a shop. But standing on the sidewalk, she began imagining what could fill it: shelves of carefully selected products, space for her nutrition coaching and a gathering place where people could learn more about caring for themselves.
By March 1, she had signed the lease. On April 14, The Wellness Stop opened its doors.
The following summer, she expanded downstairs.
Today, her two-floor business at 146 E. Main St. brings together a wellness shop, nutritional coaching, self-care services and workshops. Visitors can browse for a gift upstairs, then head downstairs for a red light session, an evening meditation or sound bath.
For Sullivan, whose own health struggles inspired a career in wellness, the goal is to make those resources (and the people behind them) more accessible.
“I wanted to create a place for the community to gather, with products I’ve vetted and practitioners I know and trust,” Sullivan said.
What’s in store
Soy candles, bath soaks and body butter are among the self-care products and gifts at The Wellness Stop in Port Jefferson, where owner Karen Sullivan selects the inventory herself. (Courtesy of The Wellness Stop)
Upstairs, Sullivan has fit a surprising amount into about 700 square feet.
The selection extends from supplements and organic teas to bamboo toothbrushes, Bite toothpaste bits and bergamot-and-ginger deodorant in plastic-free packaging.
There are Formulary 55 soaps in combinations such as bourbon and vanilla or honeycomb and neroli, along with shower steamers and grapefruit-and-rosemary body polish. Gift options include Annapolis candles, floral eye pillows and Barefoot Dreams robes.
Sullivan selects the inventory herself, paying attention to ingredients and the products people use throughout their daily routines.
Downstairs, the focus shifts from things to take home to time set aside for a session.
The LightStim red light bed by Lightstim is booked for 40-minute appointments. Other offerings include Reiki, 30-minute ionic foot baths and InBody scans that measure body composition, including muscle and body fat.
The calendar adds another dimension, with November offerings ranging from meditation and sound baths to a holiday doormat workshop.
A Nov. 14 grocery shopping tour at Wild By Nature in Setauket takes Sullivan’s guidance into the aisles, with an hour of shopping tips for $10.
A plan that fits
Sullivan’s nutritional coaching starts with questions that go beyond what someone ate for breakfast.
Are they sleeping? What does their workday look like? Do they have time to prepare meals?
“I’m concerned about the flow of your day,” she said.
Her 90-day nutrition coaching program includes an hourlong opening session, five follow-up appointments, meal plans and recipes, and monthly body-composition scans.
But any plan has to account for the person following it.
One client told Sullivan he wasn’t going to cook. He was single, ate out and had no interest in using his kitchen. So she helped him explore meal preparation companies and navigate restaurant menus.
The same practical approach applies to stress. Sullivan incorporates meditation and breathwork while recognizing that jobs, family responsibilities and Long Island’s cost of living are part of her clients’ everyday lives.
“Because if I don’t understand who you are, and what makes you get up and get out of bed every day, then how can I give you nutritional advice if I’m not understanding your day-to-day life?”
How it happened
Sullivan once wished someone would ask her those same questions.
Diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 29, Sullivan is now 58 and says she has been cancer-free for 29 years. But in her mid-30s, she experienced another difficult stretch.
“I was having tons of anxiety, tons of panic attacks, and no one was looking at my hormones,” she said. “No one was really kind of asking me, ‘Are you sleeping?’”
Her son was young, and she felt her concerns weren’t being fully explored.
“Intuitively, as a woman, I knew that I needed hormone management, and I just could not get that from anybody,” she recalled.
She sought help from naturopathic and integrative practitioners, an experience that eventually led her into health coaching.
Sullivan enrolled in her first coaching program in 2010. Working in a functional medicine practice beginning in 2016 prompted her to return to school.
“Working with clients made me want to keep learning, so I could better understand what they were going through and give them the support I had once needed myself,” she said.
She completed another program in 2019. Her certifications include training through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, and her practice has a particular focus on women navigating perimenopause, menopause and midlife.
The Wellness Stop gave her somewhere to bring those years of experience together.
Her own health still requires ongoing medical care. Following thyroid cancer, she said, she takes medication she will need for the rest of her life.
“So when it’s necessary, it’s necessary,” Sullivan said of medication. “But we just want to make sure that we’re looking at everything.”
Follow the journey
Top: Karen Sullivan, owner of The Wellness Stop, at the red telephone booth in downtown Port Jefferson. Her East Main Street business combines a wellness shop, nutrition coaching and self-care services. (Courtesy of The Wellness Stop)
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