Today we’d like to introduce you to Phaedra Marti.
Hi Phaedra, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
This is a brief outline of my juice bar business story. Back in 2017, my mother was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia cancer and decided to start juicing again. She had scheduled a trip to come and see me as she was living in another state at the time. During her stay she decided to purchase two juicers and mail them to my home so that she could continue her juicing routine while she was staying with me. The evening of her departure she had all her luggage packed sitting by the front door and I just so happened to see her juicers sitting to the side and I said to her, “Mom you forgot your juicers” and she went to grab them and then paused briefly and turned around and looked at me and said “you know what, I am going to leave them here because either you or your sister are going to start juicing,” I just chuckled to myself and put them away in my closet and about a year later my daughter asks me where I had put the juicers because she wanted to try juicing for a few days. So she pulls out the juicer and only gets through two days. In the meantime, I was coming from therapy with my son who is autistic and his favorite thing to do after therapy was to go to McDonalds to get a Happy Meal. So this particular day we went there and something in me said to not go back home but park in the parking lot and eat our food there. I didn’t want to but this unction was so strong compelling me to park in the shopping plaza parking lot where McDonalds was and eat. As I began to eat, I looked up and there was a “For Lease” sign on an empty commercial space of this shopping plaza. The same voice/unction compelled me to get out and go and look at the sign and to take a picture of the phone number.
I felt so awkward doing it because it was just so random and without any real reason to be doing so. As I proceeded to go back to my car a voice clear as day said to me “You are going to open a juice bar here”. I was like ok, I know I am not crazy! 1st of all I don’t even juice nor drink raw juice like that, Now I am a believer in God and a praying woman, so I have my moments of prayer and encounters of faith with God, so in this moment I began to say to myself “Is this God speaking to me and if this is why be saying this type of a thing to me. So I called my husband and told him what had just happened. He was like, “So did you call the number?” I responded and said “No!” like what am I going to say? He says to me jokingly, “I don’t know but if God said it you better do it” So I call the number and the realtor asks me my name, etc. and what I am interested in putting there, and so I just say what I felt God spoke to me and I say ” A juice bar” So she asks me if I have a menu and I tell her no I do not and she then says that they do not show commercial spaces unless the person has a menu if it is food-related. So she asked me if I can get her a menu in 48 hours and before I knew it, the words yes I can get that for you” flew right out of my mouth! She was like, “Great, great I will be looking forward to it. Well by the time she had hung up, I was standing there with my mouth open in shock about to pass out from extreme shock and anxiety. “What menu!” I said I don’t even juice!! So the next thing I said was “Ok Lord, if this was really you speaking to me and putting this on my heart and mind to do then you have to give me a menu” and the rest was history.
That night I stayed up for over 12 hours straight typing an entire menu, it was like something I could not even believe, I mean the ideas of this menu were just pouring out of me, not only that I set up the menu format/design and everything. When my husband woke up the next morning he saw me on the computer and was like, “Don’t tell me you are still working on the menu and didn’t sleep”, I told him I never left this chair from yesterday. He couldn’t believe it. So after that, I went and pulled out the juicer that my mother had left and started coming up with juice recipes. So my daughter comes in and was like what are you doing mom and I told her the entire story and she was like, “Well, if you are really going to do this you can’t have a juice bar without smoothies” I give her a look like no I can’t do that. I mean, I make smoothies everyday for myself but I can’t do this for the public and she says to me that “You have to mom, juice and smoothies just go together”, so I prayed again and was like ok Lord if this is really you then please give me smoothie recipes too, and no sooner than I prayed that all of these smoothie recipe variations just started flowing right out of my pen onto the paper and so I began to add these smoothies to the menu as well. Before I knew it, I had a completed Juice bar menu. The next day was exactly 48 hours and I nervously submitted the menu over to the realtor. By that evening she had called me back all full of excitement to tell me that the owner of the shopping plaza absolutely loved the menu and the entire concept and wanted to have me come look at the space asap.
Well, my heart just about dropped right there as I’m like this is not happening, this is a dream, I’m not ready for this, I don’t know anything about running a commercial retail business, I mean I was just going on and on. But to make a long story short, we went and looked at it and signed the lease (There are many more things that happened during the lease signing process too) So now the real work begins… “The build out” As this space was left vacant for 11 years and needed a lot of work done to get it to where we needed it. My husband is a contractor so we agreed that he would do the build out and we would save money by putting in the sweat equity. The owner gave us about five months of free rent to help us get it fixed up and open. Well, my husband was working on a job up in Sandy Springs and was trying to finish up that job so that he could start the build-out on the juice bar. It was a Thursday and that Monday, he was supposed to start building out. That’s when everything changed and I called my husband to ask him a quick question and the homeowner answered his phone and said, “there was an accident and that the fire department was on the way” I was so confused because I literally had just spoken to him 10 minutes ago and so I thought they were joking with me, but I hear the sirens of the fire engines and she said I will call you back and hung up. So then came that “phone call” it was the hospital calling me to tell me they were taking my husband into surgery and they wanted to let me talk to him before they went in. He gets on the phone and he says, “Hi honey” and I’m like “Hi honey, what happened what is going on?” and he says “I messed up, I messed up real bad, I cut my fingers” I’m like but you’ve cut your self plenty of times and he was like no, this time it’s bad, I cut all of them off” Well I just about passed out. And this is where our journey of faith, endurance and blood, sweat and tears began.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My husband’s hand injury set us back for a bit and just the struggles of adjusting to trying to open a new business and getting hit with injury and then covid hit right after we opened.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a juice/smoothie bar. We specialize in raw cold-pressed juices in which we use all-natural fruits and vegetables; we also offer smoothies, smoothie bowls, Acai bowls and avocado toast as well as seasonal house special vegan chili and vegan chicken soup. We also partnered with a baker and we sell their vegan cake slices.
We are known for our Acai bowls and our avocado toast and our vegan house special chili.
Last year we were excited to introduce soft serve ice cream to our customers. Regular and Vegan options.
What sets us apart from others is that for our smoothies, we do not use any water, no ice, no syrups, we use all frozen fruit and either honey, maple syrup or agave for our sweeteners. So you are getting a full 16 oz of all fruit.
We are most proud of the fact that we offer all-natural fruits and vegetables as the base of our products that we can bring to customers as a healthier alternative for meals.
We offer 1, 2 and 3 day juice cleanse packages.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
The things I like best about Atlanta is the diversity and the broad spectrum of things to do and places to visit and explore.
The things I like the least about Atlanta is the traffic and congestion and overcrowding of certain places now, with the limited parking.
Contact Info:
- Email: sipsnblends@gmail.com
- Website: www.sipsnblends.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sipsnblends
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sipsnblends/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sips-n-blends-locust-grove
