Bushel Whole Blended Juices, which opened up shop inside the Willows Market in Menlo Park on Jan. 27, started as a wife making nutrition-dense vegetable-and-juice drinks for her husband.
"It was kind of a fluke," co-founder Tasneem Manjra said of this morphing into a business. The San Mateo resident was working as an independent consultant at the time.
Manjra's husband's clients starting asking where he got the juices and wanted to buy them, so she said she thought to herself, "Why don't I give it a shot?"
Soon thereafter, Google became client number one. Catering the search engine giant's events lead to selling juice to VCs on Sand Hill Road and eventually, doing individual and corporate deliveries up and down the Peninsula.
"And then recently, Willows was kind enough to give us a spot in the store, so now we've got the juice bar," Manjra said.
At the new brick-and-mortar, you won't find Manjra riding the trendy health wave of cold-pressed juices. As the name suggests, she instead uses a Vitamix blender to create Bushel's whole fruit and vegetable concoctions.
"The thing that's different between us and (other juiceries that cold-press their ingredients) is our juices are all blended, meaning we don't press anything out," she explained.
Current blends include "Sincerely, Green" (kale, spinach orange, lemon, apple and pineapple), "Beets Me" (beet, apple, lemon, pineapple, grapes and ginger), "Avocado Bliss (avocado, fresh almond milk and agave) and "Apple of My Day," a probiotic drink with kale, apple, banana, fresh almond milk and non-fat plain yogurt. It goes without saying that all ingredients used are as organic, local and seasonal as possible.
One menu offering exclusive to the Willows Market spot (not available via delivery) is fresh almond milk made on-site.
The juices are also made on-site in front of customers and come in two sizes/price points: 8-ounce juices for $4.99 and 16-ounces for $7.99. (Almond milk runs for $3.99 and $5.99 for the same sizes.)
Manjra said they're testing out what hours work best with the neighborhood demand, so check Yelp for updated times. Right now Bushel is open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Wednesday and Thursday, 5 to 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. The company still offers juice delivery (to your door within an hour of their making), catering and on-site blending.
Info:
Bushel Whole Blended Juices
60 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park
415-935-1538
www.bushelwholeblended.com
