Juice Pharm — Restaurant in Duluth

I am staying in the Duluth, MN area for approximately 4 months. I'm a vegetarian and immediately started looking for any vegan/vegetarian restaurants in the area. I located Juice Pharm, and decided to try them. So, I placed an order online with this business on 5/6/2025 in the evening to be picked up the morning of 5/7/2025 @ 10:30am as a carry out (that is why I didn't rate the Atmosphere).

Following are my reasons for the pour ratings:

1. I placed my order online so I wouldn’t have to wait in line to place an order. However, I still had to wait in line to pick up my order for walk-in people to place their order. Why??? I placed my order the day before, fully paid for with a tip and I still had to wait in line for people who were just placing their orders. This seems unfair to me. This business needs a dedicated an area for people who placed their orders online to pick up their order without having to wait inline.

2. The following is a direct quote from their website: "Juice Pharm is a cafe and juice bar in Downtown Duluth dedicated to serving healthy, fresh-made and locally-sourced food and drinks. Our 100% plant-based and gluten free menu focuses on cold-pressed juices, refreshing smoothies, fruit-filled açaí bowls and globally-inspired specialty foods.” My personal health goal is to try to eliminate add sugar from all the foods I eat. I incorrectly assumed this business would also pursue such a goal for the menu items they offer their customers.

I ordered the following as a carryout order: I ordered a Acai Bowl specifically their Blue Majik Bowl-Large (24oz) with added Cashew Butter (the Cashew Butter was stuck to the lid of the container my order was placed in) , Extra Granola, and Add-on Blueberries. After I started eating it I could tell it was loaded with add sugar-so I broke my dietary goal-not intentionally.

The base of Acai Bowls are made from acai berry puree. This business buys commercially made purees for their Acai Bowls and these contain rather high amounts of added sugar. This business doesn't disclose added sugar amounts for their menu items.

I actually contacted this business through their website via email on 5/7/2025 @ 4:36pm with the above concerns and with the following questions:

1. Which of the items in my online order had added sugar and how much?

2. Do all of your Acai Bowls have added sugar, and how much?

3. Does your Granola have added sugar, how much?

4. Do you have any menu item available for online ordering and carryout pickup that have “NO ADDED SUGAR”? If you do, please list them (implying provide me a list).

The business never replied to my email. If they would have replied, I probably wouldn't have written this negative review. This type of information would be critical to any people with diabetes.

I would like to support this local business if they would identify items on their menu that have no or very small amounts of added sugar.

Beware, If you want to limit the consumption of added sugar avoid Juice Pharm's Acai Bowls. I don't know if any other of Juice Pharm's menu items also have high amounts...

I hate to leave a bad review but I also want others to avoid disappointment. Juice Pharm seems to be going for a west-coast aesthetic with smoothies, acai bowls, and a fully vegan menu. And it could be really cool. Unfortunately, it's really missing the mark on both cost and quality. My husband and I visited for lunch today. He got avocado toast and a smoothie and I got a bowl. These three items plus 10% tip cost us $40.

All three items fell pretty far short of our expectations based on the price and the cumulative star rating that this establishment has. The smoothie had a big chunk of frozen fruit in it (about the size of a roll of quarters).

The avocado toast was comprised of a single piece of approx. 4 x 4 inch white sandwich bread (think "Wonder" bread). It had a scant portion of avocado with micro greens on top. The "bowl" was actually a lunch-sized salad. Based on the description it sounded like it would be a warm bowl with an avocado aioli but it was actually a cold salad and the dressing wasn't creamy but seemed to be vinaigrette based. The salad had some kick to it but no other flavors (e.g., the black beans in the salad could have been cooked with cumin and lime to give them a flavor profile but they seemed to just be plain black beans).

We're not great cooks, but for a medium level of effort, we regularly produce more flavorful vegan and vegetarian dishes at home (including avocado toast, which is great on sourdough with some other enhancements on top). And while that may not be a fair or helpful assessment in this context, it IS how we tend to judge food we eat at restaurants, especially at a $20 per person price point.

I really hope they can make some improvements to their menu and food preparation/recipes. We need good and flavorful vegan food options and establishments. I don't mind paying $15 for a really delicious lunch salad but not for one that misses the mark on the...

It's nice to just be able to order off the menu when visiting restaurants for vegan food. I thought the breakfast tacos were really good, and my partner thought the gogi tacos were also great. It's a cute, quiet little place, but the nearby road closures probably helped a lot with the traffic.

However, there are two things I would say could use an improvement. First, the 'hot elixir' I ordered was...lukewarm; even if it wasn't the hot chocolate I made it out to be in my head (not nearly sweet enough, which is fine, I just didn't prepare myself for something bitter and spicy). Second, and most importantly, the hummus is confusingly bad. Our tacos came with a choice of side, so we both chose veggies and hummus. The hummus was watery and oniony, like someone had blended a raw onion into a (still bland) hummus. This is a super easy fix, for sure—that's why we were both confused as to how it could be so bad in the first place. We have never used raw onion in any hummus we've ever made at home. I wouldn't recommend raw onion. In any case, something should certainly be done about that. The ingredients are all too simple and affordable to sell watery, oniony hummus.

We blend our drained, pressure cooked (in salted water) garbs with water (less than was used here), salt, spices, tahini, yeast flakes, and a little oil (usually evoo), all to taste. Sometimes, I've added too much water, but it's still never been as watery as what we were served. My partner smelled the hummus and decided not to eat it. I saw it was a little watery looking and smelled the onion, but I still ate a decent scoop worth. It was bad. Please fix that. Lol.

To end this on a high note, the tacos were so good that taking them to go and eating them three hours later was still great. Keep making...