A Mission to Make a Healthy Difference
Eddie Reymond has “a bucketful” of thank you notes he’s gotten from customers, including professional golfers, Ultimate Fighting Championship contenders, and many other athletes. It’s no wonder that Eddie’s Health Shoppe has been voted number one by Cityview readers.
The Swiss native came to this country when he was 14, married a girl from Halls, Kelley Biggs, finished college and got into a retail business selling baseball cards.
“It did really well, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” he says. “I was always into sports, and one of my customers was trying to get me to open a health food store with him. I just kind of jumped into it. We opened the Health Shoppe in Halls in 1995 and later the one in West Knoxville. We eventually split and he kept the store in Halls and I have the store on Kingston Pike.”
Now he and his daughter Bridget have opened a brand new location downtown at the corner of Union and Walnut.
“My dad’s had this store on Kingston Pike since I was born,” says Bridget Reymond, 23. “I started working here a few years ago and it was always within a mile of our house. Now we’ve opened this one downtown and we own it 50-50. We work really well together, so I was happy when we had the opportunity to start this store.
“I like helping people who are trying to make a lifestyle change and get in shape since I’m a personal trainer myself,” Bridget said. “I really like to help them get their nutrition and exercise down and help them with supplements to reach their goal.”
Eddie has the same mission.
“It’s trying to make as many people in Knoxville healthier than they are, whether it’s through the products, services, or advice we offer,” he says. “We try to have really good staff that’s knowledgeable who can answer questions.
“The store in West Knoxville has next to it the Knoxville Performance Lab. That’s kind of part of the health shop. There we do a lot of testing. We have different machines: a hyperbaric chamber, a Bod Pod for body composition tests, and an anti-gravity treadmill. That really makes us more than a one-dimensional health shop.
He says they’re also a typical health food store with vitamins, minerals, herbs, natural foods, beauty care, essential oils, pet foods, sports nutrition, proteins— a wide variety of products that have to do with sports or health.
“There was one girl who we helped with supplemental suggestions and the hyperbaric chamber we have. She had lupus and was barely getting around. She got a lot better and made me a thank you collage that’s framed. She was very thankful.
“There was one guy who I helped with dietary suggestions about five years ago. When we got done he told me he was a Type 1 diabetic. About two weeks later I got an email from him and he told me, ‘Nobody told me how to eat before and with your suggestions I was able to reduce my insulin by half.’ There are thousands of these stories.”
“We just try to do our job and if we end up getting voted number one, that’s awesome,” Eddie says. “We’re definitely not the type to be cocky about that. We’re just glad we can make a difference.”