Juice Bar Ideas for Your Restaurant

You’ve probably seen trendy juice concepts through social media, local delivery services, news articles, and celebrities. Juice is making its mark as a healthy and delicious way to consume daily produce. Many food establishments are getting on board with this trend from brunch restaurants to smoothie stands & trucks, even some gyms have juice bars. Innova Market Insights reports that “nearly two thirds of Americans consume juice at least once a week” and that the US is the largest market for juice sales with realized annual growth. We’re going to take you through the benefits of offering juice for your customers as well as the benefits of selling juice in your business.

Benefits of Adding Juice to Your Menu

There are several health benefits to drinking fresh juice, but what are the benefits of adding juice to your business? You don’t need to start a separate juice bar to get the reward of selling juice. Restaurants, cafes, and bakeries are all beginning to offer fresh juice as an addition to their existing menus with positive results.

High Mark-Up Opportunity

It’s no secret that drinks have the highest markups in the foodservice industry. High markup value is especially true for alcoholic and specialty beverages. Many chain restaurants offer drinks like coffees, juices, and smoothies in addition to soda to help with margins. Top priced drinks can bring in additional dollars for your business and can especially add value to places that don’t have the option to serve alcohol.

Upgrade Your Atmosphere

Do you often see people tag your business on social media? Do you read reviews that positively talk about your environment? If you answered “no” to one or both of these questions, your restaurant might benefit from adding a juicer to your equipment. Juicing can be shown in the front-of-house to add a visual for customers, enhancing the customer’s overall experience and showcasing the true freshness of your menu. Serving fresh juice with a strong presentation can also provide a prime picture opportunity for social-savvy clients. Small changes like this will add to the overall experience in your restaurant or cafe.

Keep a Fresh Menu

Healthy and clean eating trends continue to pop up, whether it’s plant-based diets, antioxidant forward juice cleanses or spiked juices, fresh fruits & vegetables are at the forefront. These eating styles are inspiring new businesses, existing businesses, and even new industries not previously tapped. Use juicing if you’re looking to get in on this expanding trend but don’t want to open your own health food company. Updating the menu in your establishment with some trendy offerings will help keep the public interested in what you have to serve.

Spice Up Your Bar

In line with specialty drinks, specialty cocktails can add variety to your alcohol menu. Restaurants are hopping on board with the Millennial brunch trend by offering “breakfast cocktails” like Mimosas and Bloody Marys. Cocktails will instantly improve with the addition of fresh pressed juice. If your establishment can serve alcohol, consider combining juices with your bar offering. On the flip side, another way to infuse fresh juice into your bar is to lean into the mocktail scene with non-alcoholic spritzes and mixed drinks. In order to keep prices competitive for zero-proof drinks, fresh fruit can keep these beverages looking and tasting expensive.

Seasonal Features

If you’re looking to add specials to your menu for each season, consider juices or spritzes as a seasonal offering. You may not want to commit the time to change your menu permanently but want to serve different items during the year. Create various special drinks for each season to experiment offering juices with less commitment. For example, in the summer, infuse watermelon and in the winter, add cranberries.

How to Make a Profit Selling Juice

In the United States, juice and smoothie businesses are profitable due to the convenience to drinkers of getting easy nutrients whether post-work out, on the go or with added “boosts” as meal replacements. While it can be expensive to purchase fresh produce and ingredients for juicing, there are easy ways to manage your costs and increase the profitability of your juice business.

With adults struggling to meet nutrition-based recommendations, it’s no wonder that you can find a business selling smoothies or juices in any major city in the US. The Juice Sector of the Beverage Industry is expected to reach $23.77 billion in 2024. These appealing sales numbers have brought new businesses into the industry. Businesses will likely continue to try and help adults meet their nutrition needs by serving convenient and delicious juices and smoothies.

Is a Juice Bar Profitable?

Like any foodservice business, a juice bar can be challenging to turn into a profitable venture. Food costs can be higher than other businesses, making it even more crucial to effectively manage these costs. To make this work, start with understanding your costs and sales to ensure that you make a profit. Before you start a juice business, you should start with these steps:

 1. Learn how to calculate Cost of Goods Sold and Profit Margin

• This sounds a lot harder than it is. Lay out the cost of everything that goes into one of your beverages. This includes things like cups, straws, packaging, etc. This is your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS).
• What price point do you want to be at for your juice or smoothies? Test the gross profit (Sell Price – Cost of Goods Sold) of different sell prices and find one that you’re comfortable with. To calculate profit margin, take your gross profit and divide by your sell price.

TIP: If your ingredients and packaging are adding up, consider offering only larger sized juices where you can charge another dollar or two. Odds are the packaging and ingredients wouldn’t be much more expensive for another 4oz so you’ll more than make up the difference.

2. Price out some base recipes

• Choose 3-4 recipes of ingredients that you want to sell in your business. It’s helpful to price out ingredients from different sources so that you have an idea of where you want to try and get your produce. These base recipes priced out will help determine some expected costs.
• Planned out costs will help layout some variants in your recipes and costs as the price of ingredients change and availability of product changes. It also will show you what you can always expect at least to spend on a recipe.
• Consider any up-charges or “boosts” you may want to offer. Popular options are energy boosts, protein boosts, fiber boosts, multivitamins or collagen enhancers.

3. Price out your packaging costs 

• List everything that you’ll be using to put your fresh juice or smoothies in. Are you going to bottle your juice? What about plastic cups with straws? You’ll need to choose what works best for your costs as well as what you want your branding to be.
• Consider if you want to start out with branded or plain packaging. While you might be excited to get cups with your logo on them, they usually can be costly to start with.
• Pay attention to order minimums from different companies. While the cost per item might be lower, you may have to order more, costing you more upfront. 

Here is an example of price-structure for 1 juice 3-ways, all with strong margins:

TIP: Use this template for a high-level plan, but don’t forget to source multiple prices for your packaging and ingredients!

Boost Juice Profit 

Fresh produce and ingredients can get expensive, but there are ways to save money while selling your juice. Business owners are incorporating these helpful tactics, and as a result, are increasing the profit made from their juice.

• Shop Local: Get with local farmers and gardeners that grow vegetables and fruits that you’re interested in. Build a relationship with them in which you can buy from them in large quantities and hopefully get a better price than average bulk buying. Getting produce locally is a benefit to both you and the grower and can often be less expensive than using wholesale stores.
• Start a Garden: Whether you join a community garden or start one of your own, growing your own produce has long-term benefits to your bottom line. If you successfully grow the produce you want to use, it can save you a lot of money. Growing your own food requires a time commitment that some business owners don’t have the capacity for. However, if you do have the time, it can be an enjoyable part of the business! Gardening can also help to reduce food waste in the industry.
• Shop In-Season: Anyone that eats, grows, or drinks fresh produce knows that there are growing seasons for all fruits and vegetables. Purchasing in-season produce is essential to saving money on juice and smoothie recipes. Out-of-season produce can be expensive and difficult to find, resulting in costly or unreliable recipes in your business.

What equipment do you need to start a juice bar?

• Commercial Juicer
• Fruit Wedgers & Vegetable Choppers to get produce in juicer-appropriate sizes
• Cutting Boards
• Produce Knives
• Blenders
• Prep Table
• Reach-In Refrigerator
• Ice Machine – undercounter or countertop

Staff Training

Once you start hiring employees, they will need training in creating reliable results for customers. Ingredients used need to be the same every time a recipe is made to keep costs and finished product consistent. Keep your staff informed on the proper use of ingredients and how to prevent waste.

• Pre-proportion out ingredients for each recipe or provide a scale for employees to weigh recipes. This will help prevent waste or overuse of any ingredient.
• Ensure that your staff knows how to properly use and clean your juicers or blenders. Proper cleaning of your machines will keep them operating smoothly and avoid costly breakdowns. 
• Inform staff on how to store produce to keep ingredients fresh and prevent waste.
• Teach employees how much to pour or package when creating the finished product. Overpouring can add up over the course of a shift!

Recycling Food Waste

Whether you choose to start your own juice/smoothie business or are looking to add to an existing menu, you will end up with additional food waste. Read about how to recycle or compost your food waste and make environmentally conscious choices in your business.

Why Should I Introduce Juicing to My Menu? 

To sum it up, juicing can give your customers a new experience and healthy, clean-eats options in your restaurant. Adding juice to your menu will keep it on-trend as well as keep your patrons coming back. Specialty drinks like fresh juice have excellent margins and infuse them in your bar menu for unique cocktails. Add a juicer to your equipment lineup to impress your diners, keep your menu fresh, and add extra margin dollars.