As one juice store closes in Williamsburg, another one opens.
Even though the JuiceFix Juicery closed its doors in January, locals won’t have to go long without filling their taste for fruity concoctions.
Free Range Juice, a new business targeted at providing healthy drink and food options for customers, will be opening at the Lightfoot Crossings Shopping Center in March.
Owned by three women on a mission to spread judgment-free healthy choices to locals, the juice bar will cater to a community of both the new and experienced in the juicing world.
“You may be busy, you can come in with messy hair and having just eaten a greasy cheeseburger and that’s okay,” said co-owner Lauren Hallczuk. “We just want you where you are right now.”
Owners Hallczuk, Katy Henderson and Kelsey Sanders first met as teachers at Henderson’s yoga studio, Studio South.
The trio have been teaching together for a couple of years now, Henderson said, but this past year they realized they wanted to spread their healthy lifestyles even further.
Each came to juicing in a different manner, whether through weight loss initiatives or lifestyle changes, but the results were the same. They felt better than ever before.
“It’s amazing how something just as small as one juice in the morning can change your entire day,” Sanders said. “You can come in from wherever you are and no matter what, you could feel like you made at least one good choice that day.”
The partners take the business a step further than just drinking juice; they’ve developed it into a lifestyle directed at overall health. Since deciding to go into business together, they’ve been attending regular therapy sessions to help strengthen their team.
Henderson refers to that as sacred commerce and said they believe it will help to build a better business.
“We want to maintain that relationship between the three of us in a healthy way because it directly reflects how we serve our business and our customers,” she said. “It’s all felt throughout the stream of the way a business works.”
In addition to building a strong team, the trio wants to create a community of juicers.
To do that, the business will sell a variety of different juice cleanses and flavors that would adhere to the newest juicer and the experienced ones. All three said for people new to juicing, they wouldn’t recommend a straight green juice. Instead, they’ve learned how to start people with fruitier tastes that are still beneficial and healthy and then take them through a juice journey to where the customer wants to be.
One of the ways the business plans to do that is by potentially offering juicing courses and by offering educational advice to interested customers.
“You know when you eat something and you feel really good? Well that’s an indicator of where you should be headed,” Sanders said. “So through this whole spiritual well-being and life management process, you’re learning how food is fuel.”
The business plans to bring something new to the community that Henderson said she has seen thrive in other locations. When the group attended JuiceCon, the first convention for those interested in juicing businesses in Venice Beach, California, they realized how large of a community there is for this interest.
Before, Henderson said she would drive across town to go to other juice stores in the surrounding areas, but she realized that she wanted to offer this to people in a more accessible location.
The new store, which will be next to Henderson’s yoga studio, will feature fresh and clean decor, but also a cozy atmosphere.
“We believe when we help the community thrive, everyone thrives,” Sanders said. “Just giving people access to these resources could create an entirely new culture.”
