Fresh-Squeezed Veggie Juice Finally Comes of Age

NEW YORK -- At midmorning, the line at Liquiteria is almost out the door.

Customers at the bright, cheerful juice bar can't seem to get enough of owner Doug Green's menu of smoothies and fresh-squeezed juices. Some of the drinks are billed as energy builders; others promise to burn fat, boost the immune system or detoxify the lymph system.

On the counter, a tabloid photo shows Natalie Portman clutching a bottle of Liquiteria's signature cold-pressed juices (meaning the liquid is extracted by chopping and pressing, rather than spinning in a centrifuge). Beside the picture is a framed thank-you note from another actress, Rachel Weisz, "for all the juice."

But New York's hard-core juicers don't need to trek to this trendy East Village neighborhood where Liquiteria has been serving a loyal clientele since 1996. There are dozens of juice bars all over the city, including 18 branches of the California-based Jamba Juice.

Once the drink of hard-core health nuts, fresh-squeezed vegetable juice -- along with its far more popular sibling, fresh-squeezed fruit juice -- has come of age.

Today there are more than 6,400 outlets across the United States that sell fresh juice and smoothies, ringing up $3.4 billion in annual sales, according to industry consulting group Juice Gallery Multimedia. It's a far cry from the early days, when juice bars were often drab affairs tucked in the back of health food stores, emitting the grinding, horror-movie sounds of fibrous beets and carrots meeting industrial-strength blades.

Dan Titus, the head of Juice Gallery Multimedia, traces the evolution of specialty juice bars to the health and fitness movement that began to take off in the 1960s as surfers and hippies experimented with natural foods, vegetarianism and macrobiotic diets. Juicing exploded in popularity in the late 1980s and early '90s with the introduction of the Juiceman machine in a hard-sell infomercial (now satirized on the Web) on late-night TV. Fitness legend Jack LaLanne jumped in, introducing a model under his name.

Richard Radulovich, general manager of a Lodi, Calif.-based company that produces the Champion juicer, says there were only a handful of manufacturers when the Juiceman was introduced. Soon the number shot to over 50 brands, including some from big companies like Singer, Samsung and Panasonic. Only 15 or 16 models remain now, with business slumping because of the recession. But "juicing is still popular," he said. "There's nothing healthier than eating raw vegetables."