Village Juicery — Restaurant in Toronto

Call me impressed but I didnt think I would love a chai latte made with no actual tea in it but here we are! Village juicery converted me.

The spot on Roncy is really zen... we walked in and they had music that matches the atmosphere. Modern and serene but with a bit of an edge with it's metallic sheen on the bar and sharper angles on the decor. I really liked it. It has a nice little alcove in the back where you can sit and enjoy a drink or nibble. It's very clean ... feels almost spotless with everything all well organized.

They mainly focus on offering cold press juice which you can see in the large refrigerated cases along the back wall. They have a few salads and snacks on offer but I feel it's more of a take out spot for its drinks. They also have kombocha on "tap" as well.

Chai latte - have to admit, this was delicious. Strongly spiced in a good way, you can taste the cinnamon, cocoa, cloves, and cardamom. It pleasantly fuses with the sweet coconut milk and medjool dates. All the sweetness comes from those two and that's it. No additional sugars. It looks like it get its richness from pistachios and cashews as well. They serve it hot and it was perfect for a cooler Sunday morning. I honestly think it's one of the better spiced drinks I've had in the city 5/5.

Coconut Matcha Superfood Bite - cute little snack sized bites to give you a bit of energy. This one was very good in bright flavours. You could taste the matcha, coconut, honey, vanilla, and nut pieces. I could taste a bit of the cashews but it's quite mild. The little snack ball was chewy like a coconut bar. I really thought this one was a nice snack. 4/5

Toasted Sesame Superfood Bite - an interesting take on their healthy snacks but to me, the flavours weren't melding as good as the coconut matcha. It had a more herbal or earthy flavour I wasn't expecting. This sesame flavour was very prominent but the earthy and herbal note was a strong following after the first bite. It mentioned that it's also has medjool dates and maple syrup but i didn't taste them that strongly. I just looked up the ingredients when I noticed Chaga tea. That's mushrooms. That explained the earthy flavour. 3.5/5

I love the chai latte and the matcha coconut bites. They definitely has some great flavours here and love...

Used to like this place and was a regular, but today’s experience completely turned me off. I waited over 15 minutes in -10 weather while I watched two employees take their time making two smoothies. While I was waiting, they lost three customers due to the long wait. Im 8 months pregnant and had a 13 year old senior small dog with me. When it was my turn, I picked him up to enter. I couldn’t leave him outside in that cold after waiting that long. All I wanted was one bottled juice, which would have taken a minute to get, but I was poorly greeted by two employees without masks telling me they can’t serve me if I bring my dog. I totally get that it’s a health protocol, but in such cold temperatures after such a long wait, you’d think empathy would set in and they could somehow accommodate a pregnant woman holding a small, senior dog. What is most interesting is that they wanted to enforce that health law, but both didn’t wear masks, which is a huge concern to me. The whole thing just turned me off. I was a regular customer all last summer and was really looking forward to returning, but I won’t be going back. Sometimes people...

I love their mission and their food, unfortunately their compostable containers used for the bowls aren’t compostable in Toronto. All those containers nicely labelled as compostable are not accepted in green bins, because currently they can't be processed by local municipal compost facilities. They go in the garbage and end up in landfills anyway. So much for being sustainable. I wish they would package them in recyclable #1 plastics, like they do with wraps and macarons; those at least can go in the blue bin. Too bad. The food is great, but the packaging, as it stands, is quite wasteful and harmful to the environment. Hopefully, they’ll rethink their packaging options moving forward so to match municipalities recycling and composting capabilities.

Update: I’ve learned that if you take the containers back to their retailers, they m use an alternative system to compost them. Will try...