Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Halpern
Hi Elizabeth, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In 2012, shortly after the birth of my third son, I was on the prowl for an energy boosting, weight loss solution and I came across a juice cleanse through a popular LA based company. I did five miserably days! everything tasted gross to me and I was hungry. But on the next morning after I completed 5 days, I looked and felt amazing! My homegirl Melissa Cronkhite presented me with an idea, we should open up a local spot offering not only the best quality juices (must be organic, raw, and cold-pressed!), but also the best tasting! I delved into research on nutrients and combinations, literally painting one wall of my Frog Town loft chalk and marking up recipes as friends and family would sample prospects, and melissa got to all the legalwork details like a url, permits, licensing etc. At the time my youngest son was two and Melissa’s was three years old, so it was tough but 12 years later we are still at it! offering the highest quality products on the market! always organic, never pasteurized, and cold-pressed right in our Atwater Village shop, we wouldn’t serve our families anything less.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There have been some huge learning curves. A year after opening in Atwater, we opened up a shop in Highland Park but quickly realized it was too close to Atwater and mostly the same clientele so we closed up, and opened in Sherman Oaks, on a beautiful street with a huge Oak directly in front of the shop which we came to realize, totally hid us from view. The city offered to cut it down but we couldn’t do such a thing, so we closed up there as well. But in 2020 Grand Central Market approached us, and we are huge fans of the market so we couldn’t resist, and it’s been awesome having a stall there, directly across for Egg Slut.
As you know, we’re big fans of The Juice. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Though the Los Angeles market for cold-pressed juice was seriously over-saturated when we first opened in 2013, we are one of the only survivors of the flood. Most of the others managed to stay on their feet by down-grading to conventionally sourced and extremely cheaper produce, or by pasteurizing their pressed juices to extend the shelf life. At The Juice we produce nothing less than pure, organic, unadulterated juice and nut milks, anything else is lacking the live enzymes that make juice so beneficial. We believe our customers can taste and feel the difference.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
We certainly took a risk in opening up our flagship location in Atwater Village, but then each subsequent shop felt even more precarious and two ended up costing more than their worth not just monetarily but in time, energy and resources, but if we had”t been willing to go out on a limb once again, we wouldn’t have our amazing spot in Grand Central Market where we finally landed our contender.
Pricing:
- we priced all of our juices and nut milks the same
- each cost $11
- we didn’t want price to be the deciding factor for customers
- organic produce costs fluctuate greatly
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thejuiceLA.com
- Instagram: thejuice_LA
