How to Start a Successful Fresh Juice Bar
In the era of caring for your health, figure and proper nutrition, business lines related to a healthy lifestyle are becoming increasingly popular. Therefore, the idea of opening a fresh juice bar, where, in front of customers, prepare tasty and healthy cocktails, as well as other “right” drinks and snacks, can be called very promising.
What is a Fresh Juice Bar
The fresh juice bar is a small catering establishment that offers visitors fresh cocktails, as well as smoothies. Outwardly, the fresh bar is a small stall on the street or an islet in the shopping center (as an option – in the fitness center, water park, or at the airport).
Tables and chairs can stand near it, or the fresh bar can only trade takeaways. Clients can be both tourists and regular visitors who are worried about proper nutrition or just love delicious fruit drinks. As a rule, smoothie bars are aimed at customers with average incomes and above.
Fresh juice bar can be stationary or mobile. The former is located in one place and often works year-round. The second can move around the city and usually close in the cold season. Often they can be found on beaches and parks.
Such bars are very popular in the West. In Nigeria, they began to appear relatively recently and mainly in large cities. So there is no strong competition in this market yet – which means that it is not too late to start your own business.
Step-by-Step Opening Plan for a Fresh Juice Bar
The step-by-step plan for opening a fresh bar includes the following steps:
Choosing a Room
Smoothies and fruit drinks are often referred to as involuntary purchases, so the choice of location and its patency are the key factors for starting this business.
In a residential area, a fresh bar is unlikely to be cost-effective.
Good places are:
parks, promenades, and other places for walking;
fitness centers and sports clubs;
cinemas;
water parks;
Airports
You will need a very small room – no more than 10 square meters. The rental prices depending on the city and other factors are very different. Opening a smoothie bar is not indoors, but in the form of a small stall on the street, it usually takes more time and requires large expenses for the necessary communications.
Fresh bar menu
The normal menu includes:
- Thick smoothies – drinks made from fruits, as well as vegetables, berries, and ice, whipped in a blender. Often dairy products are added there.
- Fresh (freshly squeezed juices): for example, carrot, orange, lemon, strawberry, banana, pineapple, apple. Different types of juice will require different equipment: soft fruits can be beaten in a blender, there are special juicers for citrus fruits. This also includes cocktails from different types of vegetables and fruits.
- Sets of fruits.
You can expand the menu to include milkshakes, coffee, healthy sweets, milkshakes. Analyze what your competitors are selling and what is in demand with them. Sometimes expanding the menu helps to attract new customers, but this is not always justified. Such an expansion means additional costs for the purchase of ingredients and, possibly, new equipment, as well as the need to train staff.
If new menu items will not be in demand among buyers, it makes no sense to enter them. Therefore, novice entrepreneurs are encouraged to start with the main positions that should be in every smoothie bar. When you pay back your starting investments and better understand the preferences of your customers, you can expand the range.
If the fresh bar is located in the business center, it makes sense to include light and healthy snacks on the menu: for example, fruit and vegetable salads.
Equipment for Fresh Juice Bar
The purchase of equipment in this business is the main procurement item. The exact list of equipment depends on the menu. You will definitely need:
Refrigerator;
showcase;
bar counter;
cabinets;
washing;
juicer, blender, and mixer;
cash register
One of the most important elements of the equipment is a high-quality juicer. The quality of the drinks that you will sell directly depends on the juicer, and high performance will allow you to serve customers promptly, without creating queues. Professional devices usually justify their price due to their characteristics and long service life.
Staff
Almost any person can work in such an institution: such work does not require special knowledge, skills, and education. It should be understood that the employee is the face of the institution. Since the very idea of a fresh juice bar is associated with healthy products, energy, youth, and beauty, it is important that employees match this image.
They should be young, smiling, and fit. Of personal qualities, accuracy, honesty, and openness are important.
For a small amount of work, one person will be enough for you to make cocktails and accept payment. If one employee does not cope with the flow of customers, you need to expand the staff.
In this case, you can divide the tasks of the staff (one prepares, the other is responsible for payment), or take 2 universal employees. If the point works from early morning until late evening, the work needs to be organized in two shifts.
Salary is usually considered a fixed rate plus a small percentage of revenue so that staff is interested in sales growth. In addition, you need an accountant, but for such a small institution, it makes no sense to hire him in the state.
Cleaning services, as a rule, are not required: workers themselves clean their workplace at the end of the shift, especially since the area of the fresh bar is minimal.
Advertise Your Fresh Juice Bar
The most difficult thing when starting a new project is attracting customers. To do this, you can use both offline and online advertising.
Offline: a bright and attractive sign, distribution of flyers, outdoor banner advertising, a system of bonuses and discounts for regular customers (especially if the fresh bar is in the place where people regularly come – a fitness center, business center, etc.).
Online advertising also opens up tremendous opportunities for your promotion. These include:
- Advertising on social networks. Here, keep a page of your fresh bar: for example, on Instagram. Here you can configure targeted advertising – for example, for people who often celebrated a visit to the place where your bar is located. You can also organize contests and sweepstakes to attract attention.
- Advertising with a blogger and/or a star. This will attract the attention of buyers, but such advertising requires an impressive budget.
At the start, an advertising campaign is necessary. In the future, if the place is well located, you can get by with a bright signboard and page maintenance in social networks.
Conclusion
Before launching your fresh juice bar, the main thing is to choose the right place and draw up a detailed business plan. Analyze the purchasing power of people in your city and the work of your competitors. In addition to location, a good level of service and a thoughtful assortment are important.
Among the advantages of this business are high profitability and relatively low costs at the start, quick payback, low competition, as well as mobility. You can launch a small mobile point and participate in various events, such as festivals and concerts. Sometimes one day of mass festivities can bring fresh revenue to the monthly bar. Such a business is easy to scale by opening a whole network of smoothie bars in your city or region.
But this business cannot be launched in every city: it is more suitable for megacities and resorts.
