Pressed Juicery is refreshing.
And it’s not just the store’s cold-pressed, fresh vegetable and fruit juice mixtures. It’s also the ethos behind the juice.
“Sometimes health and wellness in general can be a little elitist at times,” said Hayden Slater, who opened Pressed with two close friends in Los Angeles in 2010. “I think Pressed’s whole mentality is just be better, whatever that means to individuals … drink a juice a day, a juice a week, a juice a month; whatever you can afford, whatever you can incorporate.”
The Pressed team, which began as three friends who had all turned to juice for various health and personal reasons, opened its 17th location at the Stanford Shopping Center in late November of last year.
It’s a bare-bones store, with not much more than a counter the employees stand behind and a refrigerator full of cold-pressed juices, but that’s the point (and is the same way at other Pressed locations). Customers can walk in, sample any of the 40-plus pre-bottled juices on the menu, make their purchase and be on their way.
Slater said that he feels “passionate” about convenience; hence the pre-bottled concept and in-and-out feel.
“How do we make it as easy to incorporate (juice) into your routine as possible?” Slater said he and his two partners asked themselves early on.
The 16-ounce juices run $6.50 a pop and range anywhere from “greens 2” (kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, cucumber, celery, apple and lemon) to “citrus 2” (pineapple, apple, lemon, mint) and apple/strawberry/coconut. There are also two flavors of almond-based drinks — vanilla and chocolate — with such ingredients as almonds, dates, cacao, vanilla bean and sea salt ($8 each). Since this is a farm-to-bottle-driven business, there are always seasonal flavors on the menu (for winter, think yam, apple, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg or apple, cinnamon and persimmon).
All the juices are made with a hydraulic press, which crushes and then presses the produce to get the most juice possible. This, compared with a regular juicer that squeezes out the juice, reputedly yields fresher, more nutrient-dense juice.
Pressed also offers a range of juice cleanses, both in length (one, three and five days) and level (from “first time” to “experienced” cleansers). These can be purchased online or at the store and will be sent to the customer with detailed instructions for how to prepare, when to drink which juice, an explanation of the nutritional benefits and results (regulated colon, increased energy and stamina, increased mental clarity, better sleep patterns).
Beyond juice, there’s also tea: red rooibos, green rooibos and lemon myrtle. Chlorophyll water, coconut water and aloe vera water sell for $5 each.
Though the company’s base is in Southern California, the Stanford Shopping Center brings Pressed to six total Northern California locations.
Pressed also has a massive delivery operation, sending juices all over the country from the Central California farm where all of the company’s juices are made fresh every day.
Slater said he likes to think of the delivery service as “a modern-day milkman, but with juice.”
But it wasn’t always this way. When Pressed first started, it was Slater, partners Carly Brien and Hedi Gores, and one employee in Los Angeles. Slater would make the juice himself every night and bring it to the 22-square-foot kiosk where they sold juice.
One of his partners, a full-time mom, “loved the idea of creating healthy options for younger generations,” Slater said. “My other partner (Brien) lost her mom to cancer and is a big advocate of the product and healing benefits of it. For me personally, I really struggled with my own weight for years. I’m not going to say juice was the only thing but it was the catalyst for me that inspired me and got me into a living a more healthy life.”
Info:
Pressed Juicery
660 Stanford Shopping Center (between Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, facing the parking structure)
650-329-1450
so this is some kind of a health-food fad. does this taste very good to drink? is this very expensive? try this out and if it’s no good then switch back to drinking the hot tea, right?
“Sometimes health and wellness in general can be a little elitist at times,” said Hayden Slater, who opened Pressed with two close friends in Los Angeles in 2010. “I think Pressed’s whole mentality is just be better, whatever that means to individuals … drink a juice a day, a juice a week, a juice a month; whatever you can afford, whatever you can incorporate.”
I don’t think pursuing health and wellness is necessarily elitist. Spending $6.50 on a small bottle of juice to be “better” is elitist, as well as pretentious, delusional, and ridiculous.
@SRB,
“Spending $6.50 on a small bottle of juice to be “better” is elitist, as well as pretentious, delusional, and ridiculous. “ Yes, how true, but it’s a perfect fit for Palo Alto
And wasteful, because of the plastic. Sad.
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
– H. L. Mencken
$5 a bottle is not so bad compared to some of those thing, stringy pallid concoctions I’ve seen on the shelves of Whole Foods and the like. They do not taste anything like real juice though. You know what is really good, but a bit more effort is – buy a masticating juicer … ( i.e. chewing ) juicer like the Omega line of juicers and make your own fresh and wholesome juice – yourself!
I am one who use to mostly eat meat and more meat, scoffing at greens and occasionally nibbling at fruit if it had enough sugar in it, or was in a pie or covered with chocolate – my favorite vegetable … but when I first tried my juicer with some Spring Mix, Kale, Carrots, Celery, Parsley and Pear in it, I hardly could believe it … fresh green vegetable juice is out of this world. You can just feel how good it is for you as you drink it.
Make your own though, who knows what you get or how long those things have been on the shelve, or were sitting around before they made it to the shelves, or if they were well refrigerated, and how much light got to them to destroy the vitamins? You just never know.
The only bummer about juicing is the cleanup … but that is not so bad with one of the masticating varieties. Check out a series of videos from DiscountJuicers.Com on You-Tube if you are interested in juicers. The videos showoff and test all the main types and brands of juicers in real world situations and compare them. There are some amazing technical innovations in juicers now, and they are quick to clean up and make very good juice with very dry pulp.
Some of them also make frozen soft ice cream like confections or nut butters, even pastas.
The whole idea of “the cleanse” of the “colonic cleanse” really baffles me, and most honest doctors and nutritionists. The natural insides of your body holds … uh, yeah, that’s right, POOP!. No way to cleanse it. Just eat the right stuff. It’s like trying to sweep a dirt floor clean … hello, it;s always going to be a dirt floor no matter what you do it’s dirt. 😉
You keep your insides in shape by eating fiber, which has been taken out and replaced by fat/oil and sugar these days. Americans do not get enough fiber because most of us do not eat anything real anymore.
A good bowl of fresh popcorn will do more to clean your insides than a fancy cleanse.
No, I’m not a doctor but I pretend to be one on the Internet.
$6.50 is a steep price but people are addicted to their Starbuck’s and that’s not cheap either. At least this is healthier.
I have teeth and like to use them. I prefer to eat my fruits and veggies. Back in the day, it was the elderly, the sick and the very young who had their food pulped to make it easier for them to chew and swallow.
No thank you, I am perfectly able to exercise my mandibles.
I like the idea of Jamba Juice but the calories seem high and the drinks, while tasty, seem to give me a sugar high. I have a nice blender but struggle to make thick-enough juice smoothies. Anyone have basic suggestions? Thanks.
I should have added: I am not sure I will try out this new juice store. Have to think about it.
anonymous, get a real juicer. I would recommend the Omega horizontal masticating juicers. They have an auger internally that smashes the veggies into a confined space and crushes the juice out of them. These are the best juicers for greens. The best and healthiest juices are the green juices, some combination of lettuces, spinach, kale, carrots, cucumbers, parsley, beets and then add an apple or pear to sweeten. Over time you will not really need to make the juice sweet, green juice really tastes good. The problem with Jamba juice is that it is like soda pop, an immediate sugar high and subsequent crash … and fruit has too much acid for your teeth and system.
The first time I made green juice I was about to throw away my juicer and thought I’d give it one more try. I put all the above ingredients in and I was amazed at how good it tasted. You can add other things to try it out, but now I am a regular juicer.
Resident says he likes to use his teeth, but the thing is with a juicer you can eat many more veggies that you could normally consume by eating … your jaw would be tired and worn out.You get more nutrition from juice.
Since when do humans need to drink chlorophyll?
You get more vitamins from juice, but also less fiber, less satiety, more calories. Best to eat the whole vegetable and all of its fiber. You will feel full on fewer calories, since the fiber is 40-50% indigestible ( meaning it goes through your intestines unchanged, which “cleanses” you).
Ask any degreed nutritionist!
No one is saying it is either drink juice or eat vegetables … the bottom line is that if you want good nutrition you can do both. You simply cannot spend all day preparing, cooking and chewing vegetables. If you want fiber you can “juice” with a blender and keep the fiber in. I like vegetables, but thinking that you can eat enough vegetables to get the nutrition this polluted stressful world demands seems erroneous to me.
For example for me to make a full large glass of juice and drink it may take half and hour, to clean the juicer. To cut that up and put that into a salad would take much longer, and you would put salad dressing on it getting more calories and fat. In this case juicing is a clear win, but I am not suggesting eating only juice or even primarily juice. Juicing can take the place of taking certain vitamin supplements.
Greens are the most nutrient dense foods on the planet for human beings, and it would be hard to sit down and eat a whole bowl of kale, or leafy greens. If you make a fresh glass of juice with other vegetables I think anyone would be surprised at how good it tastes and makes you feel.
I am looking forward to trying this place now that I know the ingredients are fresh and the juice is made with a hydraulic press. I want to see how different the hydraulic press is from a centrifugal or masticating juicer. The average person cannot afford a hydraulic juicer … the Norwalk Hydraulic Juicer is almost $3000, over 10 times as much as a good masticating juicer, and with less warranty as well.