I landed myself a summer job at a juice bar in a beach town. I underestimated how chill the experience would be until I realized that I hadn't met a single person I disliked in a long time (and my skin was glowing and food baby was disappearing!). Everyone coming in and out of a juice bar has one goal in mind: being healthy! This shared value created a kind, compassionate workplace.
1. Your Boss is a Boss
Work is never enjoyable if you and your boss are constantly butting heads. However, the owner of a juice bar is a particular type of person (that is easy to get along with). They have strong values about leading a clean, healthy lifestyle and even more they want to share their values with the world. They do this by opening a juice bar, so organic, locally-grown food is easily accessible to the community. Your boss is changing the world one juice at a time!
2. Your Coworkers Become Your Besties
Team work makes the dream work. Juice bars have a small staff, which means you and your coworkers are going to be overlapping shifts often and figuring out secret systems to make the smoothies and juices fastest when there is an afternoon rush. Soon enough the people you met during training are your go-to homies for advice and dinner dates (because juice bar employees don't just live off juice).
3. You Start Eating Cleaner by Association
A juice bar is always stocked with the freshest ingredients from turmeric to spirulina. Experimenting with all the organic ingredients to make yourself your daily shift smoothie makes you appreciate the sometimes bitter taste of juice. Juicing is a creative and unique process—no two juices are alike. Once you learn to enjoy the particular palette juice offers you, you become hooked and will find yourself naturally reaching to fresh food rather than fried food.
4. You Understand the Power of Food
Why reach to superficially made protein powder when organic maca powder can increase your stamina and re-energize your body naturally? I wouldn't expect everyone to know about maca powder, but this is one of the many perks of working in a juice bar.
Learning all the benefits of hemp seeds, bee pollen, chia seeds and many more natural supplements to help customers customize their juices has helped me be a more knowledgeable foodie (and food blogger!).
P.s. wheatgrass is actually not healthy for you! If a cow needs four stomachs to digest grass, then surely our one stomach won't do the trick.
5. Your Customers are Cool as Cucumbers
No exaggeration, the charismatic customers that come in and out of the doors of the juice bar make the day fly by. There are a fair share "regulars", a handful of tourists and a spunky food blogger or food enthusiast that you can expect to see every day. Every customer is kind, food-loving and legitimately interested in hearing about your day.
A juice bar environment is a scene I am a-okay with surrounding myself. Cool people, similar values and healthy food? Send your application in to be a juice bar employee!