Juice Bar Collective in Berkeley. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

As any just-opened food truck can tell you, it's not so hard to get customers (and press) when you're the hot new thing on the block. Pull up to the curb, put the word out on Twitter, start serving your Japanese curry, Korean tacos, grilled cheese sandwiches or escargot-on-a-stick, and for a while at least, novelty will be your cash register's best friend.

But how do you stay in business for three decades making smoothies, soup, and sandwiches? How do you keep the same faces happy on both sides of the counter, for decades on end? Swerving from our usual pursuit of the new, we decided to check in with Berkeley's Juice Bar Collective, still in full swing in its original location, 35 years and counting. Here's what we learned, courtesy of Krissa Schwartz, a four-year collective member and now part-time worker:

Location, Location, Location

If you're going to start a small-scale, high-volume food business, plunk it down in a friendly neighborhood with lots of foot traffic and a bunch of compatible businesses. Not that the Juice Bar's founders knew in 1976 that they were setting up shop in what would come to be known as the Gourmet Ghetto. But a few like-minded tastemakers were already in place. The Cheeseboard (another collective, started in 1967) was around the corner. Alice Waters had opened Chez Panisse nearby in 1971. Alfred Peet was roasting coffee beans and serving espresso in his first cafe just half a block away, at the corner of Walnut and Vine.

Juice Bar Collective members at work. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Keep Your Ideals High, Your Workers Happy...

The Juice Bar has been a worker-owned collective since its inception. While none of the original founders are still involved, two collective members have been working there for over 25 years, others for 20. Most of the newer members have been remained there anywhere from 3 to 6 years.

Job responsibilities rotate, so eventually each member takes a turn doing all the jobs needed to keep the business running, from doing the ordering and payroll to working the cash register and washing dishes. Mandatory monthly meetings are run on a one-member, one-vote system. In return, collective members share an equal hourly wage and receive full health, vision, and dental benefits, plus 4 weeks' paid vacation.

Juice Bar Collective menu. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

...Your Menu Short

When the Juice Bar started, it offered just two things: juice and soup. The menu of made-from-scratch dishes has expanded over the years, but fresh-squeezed juices and homemade soup remain, along with a brief roster of smoothies. No room for a freezer means no frozen yogurt or sorbet in the smoothies--meaning these smoothies are pure fruit and juice with a little milk or soymilk added, not sugar-laden milkshakes in health-food disguise. The rest of the menu? A half-dozen sandwich varieties, a few veggie salads, a handful of hot dishes. Almost everything is made from scratch, mostly vegetarian and vegan, although there are tuna and turkey sandwiches, plus a much-loved turkey shepherd's pie served in the fall and winter.

Black-bean-and-polenta casserole with salsa, soup and a smoothie. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Times Change, and So Should Your Casseroles

For all their much-vaunted progressiveness, Berkeleyites feel strongly that some good things should stay that way, forever. Regulars still ask, longingly, for the soybean casserole, even though it was dropped from the menu nearly a decade ago in favor of more up-to-date offerings like pizza, lasagna, and a black-bean-and-polenta casserole blanketed in a choice of melted cheese or salsa. In a town of endless potlucks, these hot dishes, sold by the tray, have proved very popular for casual catering. What bring-your-own-dinner wouldn't be improved by a panful of no-fuss, ready-to-heat lasagna or vegan polenta?

However, the brown-rice bowl, lavished with peanut sauce and topped with a rotating choice of Asian-inspired salads, remains, and that delicious peanut sauce is now also sold in tubs to go.

And soybean lovers can still enjoy chocolate-tofu pie (melted chocolate whipped into silken tofu, poured into a graham-cracker crust) and a baked garlic-and-ginger tofu sandwich.

Buy (or Barter) Local

It takes a lot of fruits and vegetables to make all those soups and smoothies. The Juice Bar gets its organic produce from the distributor Veritable Vegetable, which started in San Francisco in 1974. Asian ingredients come from Yin Hop in Oakland's Chinatown, except for tofu, which is made locally by Hodo Soy Beanery and picked up at the Thursday farmers' market on Shattuck Ave. Sonoma's Alvarado Street Bakery, a worker cooperative started in 1981, makes their sliced sandwich bread, while baguettes from the Cheeseboard are bartered for orange juice.

And Keep the Neighbors Happy

Casual trade happens up and down the street between the Juice Bar and other food businesses. Nearby merchants and workers often get a small (and usually reciprocal) courtesy discount.

Any other secrets they've learned over 35 years in business? Enthusiasm is great, but experience pays off, especially when you're hiring a crew to work elbow-to-elbow in a tiny space (something every food truck has learned the hard way). Keep your regulars happy, but don't be afraid to mix up the menu a little to keep things fresh. Make your food organic, comforting, and healthy, like what your customers would eat at home, if vegetables chopped themselves. And perfume your kitchen with the smell of melting chocolate and baking muffins whenever possible.

Organic Blueberry Muffins. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Teaching kids to eat and drink healthfully requires much more than admonitions. After carting away the vending machines and abolishing the Big Gulps, we can't leave the kids empty-handed. Rachelle Boucher from Generation Chefs is working hard to fill the void. From the popular Pizza Smack-Downs at COPIA to her weekly cooking classes (free to high school students) in the beautifully outfitted kitchen at the Marin Youth Center (MYC a.k.a. "Mike") she's bringing fresh, whole, homemade food generously flavored with reaffirming messages and lots of common sense to a wide and diverse group of kids.


A visit to one of her cooking classes reveals her consummate skill in converting teens to the cause of healthy eating. Endowed with humor, warmth, and endless energy, she's a master of choreographing 25 wary bundles of apathy and hormones into productive teams of excited, skilled, fruit-and vegetable-loving cooks.

Rachelle hefts up 20 pounds of refined sugar so the kids can see how much the average American teenager consumes every six weeks.

Her class this past week highlighted our favorite fruit of the season--strawberries--along with one very shiny, red bike blender. The lesson for the day involved putting down sugary drinks and sipping fruit smoothies instead. In addition to fresh strawberries, melons, and bananas, the teen chefs could choose from a colorful array of juices, frozen fruit, yogurts, and natural flavorings. Most importantly, they learned that not a single grain of added sugar was needed to create a delicious drink.

A rainbow of sweet goodness just before the pedal action.

Mike Graham-Squire from the Youth Leadership Institute joined the class to show the teens how to select ingredients, calculate food costs, determine servings sizes and overall yield, and--most importantly of all--operate the bike blender. As representatives of schools and local community organizations, the kids were also learning how smoothies can be a healthful, interactive, and effective fundraising tool at large events.

From the Country of Marin's Nutrition Wellness Program, nutritionist Ellen Szakal taught the class how to read product labels to determine the number of teaspoons of sugar in each serving. A chart listing their favorite snacks and a hands--on exercise counting out a disconcertingly large pile of sugar cubes helped them understand just how much unnecessary sugar they were consuming each day.

It's a skill adults could use, too.

Calculating How Much Sugar Is In A Container
Looking at the Nutrition Facts label on the side of the package, find the number of grams of sugar. Then divide that number by 4. For example, ingesting 65 grams of sugar in a 20-ounce drink bottle (considered 1 serving) means swallowing 17 individual teaspoons of sugar.

So much youthful energy, it takes extra hands to hold the jar still.

Berkeley-based Juice Peddler sells kits for retrofitting bikes to become human-powered blenders. From the first-generation's endearingly clunky tricycle platform and antique hand-drill to the fifth-generation's sleek, high-density polyethylene design, the company has been at the forefront of DIY bike blender technology.

The kids took turns pedaling their fruit concoctions and proudly shared tastes of their icy treats with other teams. Lined up for judging, the smoothies created a rainbow of delicious fun: Monkey Melons, Fruit-A-Palooza, Pink Panther, Go Mango, Fruit-A-Licious, and Pink-A-Licous Strawberry.

I'm glad I didn't have to judge, as it would have been a tough call to pick just one winner.

Sammy and Brittney confer on the formulation of their team's smoothie.

Pinkalicious Strawberry Smoothie
The members of Team Pinkalicious decided to celebrate the happy coincidence of their clothing colors with an appropriately hued smoothie.

Serves: 6

Ingredients
10 ounces strawberries, hulled
1 banana, chopped
1 cup frozen berry medley
1/2 cup yogurt
1/4 cup orange mango juice concentrate

Preparation
1. Place all ingredients in the jar of a blender.
2. Blend until completely mixed.
3. Serve immediately.

Minted Strawberry Agua Fresca
Another excellent recipe from Generation Chefs that highlights the current season's bumper crop.

Serves: 6

Ingredients
2 cups ice cubes
3 cups strawberries, hulled
2 small mint leaves, optional
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime or lemon juice
3 tablespoons sugar, or to taste
6 whole strawberries, split 3/4 up from the point, for garnish
6 mint sprigs, for garnish

Preparation
1. Place all ingredients in a blender in the order listed.
2. Blend until completely mixed. Taste and adjust for sweetness or tartness as desired.
3. Pour into chilled glasses, garnish with mint sprigs, and slide a berry onto the rim of each glass.

Ah… smoothies. What's not to love about those frosty fruity drinks? Ever since I was a kid, I've been a lover of all smoothies. It all started with my childhood addiction to Orange Juliuses, which were all the rage (at least in my childhood Southern California bedroom community) when I was a kid. I think they started to become really popular after they were the official drink of the World's Fair in 1964. By this time, the health food craze was catching on in the United States and smoothies were the drink of choice for that burgeoning market. Plus, on a warm day, an icy beverage really hit the spot.

For those of you who haven't experienced a smoothie, it's a general term for an icy fruit drink that is blended. They almost always include some sort of fruit and then after that, the sky's the limit. You can add yogurt, juice, ice, protein powder, dairy creamer, frozen yogurt, soy milk, regular milk, or whatever you like (within reason).

In college, I sort of forgot about smoothies, preferring frozen margaritas and daiquiris instead for my frosty fruit fix. It wasn't until a few years ago, when my daughters started asking to go to Jamba Juice, that I rediscovered the smoothie. Whenever we're in the vicinity of one of these shops, my daughters beg to go. This was okay for a while, but after spending almost $20 every time we walked into one of these franchises -- and wondering how three smoothies could cost so much -- I decided to break out my blender and start making them at home.

After many rounds with the blender, I've found that there are a few keys to making a great home smoothie:

1. Use frozen fruit: Although it's tempting to use fresh fruit, especially when it's in season, frozen fruit will give your smoothie a natural frosty texture. This is usually better than the consistency you will achieve if you use ice, which has a tendency to break into inconsistent pieces, sometimes leaving larger chunks behind. Also, frozen fruit creates a creamier texture than blended ice.

2. Use Small Pieces of Ice: Some recipes simply need ice. When this is the case, try to use small pieces, or, even better, crushed ice if possible.

3. Sweeten with honey: Sometimes berries can be a little tart. If your smoothie has too much zing, just plop it back into the blender and add a tablespoon of honey to sweeten it up.

4. Add more liquid to fix a clogged blender: Sometimes when making a smoothie, the blades on the blender will fruitlessly (excuse the pun) whirl around, without actually mixing the smoothie. This happens when the smoothie doesn't have enough liquid. Just add small amounts of juice until the smoothie mixes properly.

Here are a few smoothie recipes that I've come up with. The first is for one that my daughters and I love. Plain yogurt provides the creaminess, along with an extra dose of calcium into our daily diets. In this recipe, I almost always use frozen berries. With each sip providing a burst of berry flavor as well as a load of antioxidants, the berries are the real star here.

I have also recently come to enjoy dairy-free smoothies. One of my favorites is the ultimate in simplicity. Made only with frozen mango chunks, a half a banana to add body, and orange juice to help it blend, the taste is all about the mango. What's remarkable about this smoothie is how creamy it is, even without any dairy.

My new favorite smoothie, however, is a lactose-free chocolate and almond smoothie. Yes, I do realize that this one doesn't include a lot of fruit, but the combination of the banana with the soy vanilla ice cream, along with almond butter, chocolate syrup, and either Almond Dream or soy milk is truly lip smacking.

Finally, I've recreated a version of the Orange Julius drink from my childhood. I really have no idea what they put in those drinks when I was a kid, although some web sites claim it had orange juice, powdered sugar and dairy creamer. In my version, I used two seedless tangerines, nonfat milk, orange juice, honey and ice. I made the drink and it definitely reminded me of the Orange Juliuses I drank as a kid, although I have to say that it has lost most of its appeal.

Smoothies are fast to make. Even better, they're portable: just pour them into a plastic cup or bottle and have breakfast or lunch on the go.

Berry and Yogurt Smoothie
Serves 2 medium smoothies

1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup frozen berries (cherries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries)
1 cup orange juice
1 whole medium banana
1 Tbsp honey

1. Place all ingredients in a blender.
2. Mix on high for one to two minutes, or until everything is smooth and you don't have any large ice chunks.
3. Serve.

Mango Infusion
Serves 2 medium smoothies

1 heaping cup of frozen mango chunks
½ medium banana (frozen or room temperature)
1 cup orange juice

1. Place all ingredients in a blender.
2. Mix on high for one or two minutes, or until everything is smooth.
3. Serve.

Vegan Almond, Banana, and Chocolate Smoothie
Serves 2 medium smoothies

2 large scoops Soy Vanilla Ice Cream
1 medium Banana (preferably frozen)
1 cup Almond Dream, Soy Milk, or Rice Milk
2 Tbsp unsalted almond butter (crunchy or smooth)
2 Tbsp chocolate syrup

1. Place all ingredients in a blender.
2. Mix on high for one to two minutes, or until everything is smooth and you don't have any large ice chunks.
3. Serve.

Orange Smoothie of my Childhood
Serves 2 medium smoothies

2 seedless tangeines
½ cup nonfat milk
½ cup orange juice
1 Tbsp honey

1. Place all ingredients in a blender.
2. Mix on high for one to two minutes, or until everything is smooth and you don't have any large ice chunks.
3. Serve.