By Amaree Love
Nov 5. 2022
Indigo Baby Blog
NEW YORK– Although the pandemic has affected businesses worldwide, causing a major decline, one business in Brooklyn remains intact through the trials and tribulations of the COVID-19 shutdowns.
Twisted Rootz juice bar is at 7905 Flatlands Ave., Brooklyn. It’s owned by Kerlie Napoleon and her husband, Rony Saintard. Their three daughters, Kayla, Jade, and Khloe Saintard, help at the juice bar.
While most juice bars, restaurants, and other juice companies are reporting a decrease in sales — about 62% — about 21% report things are roughly the same. Some juice bars are being forced to shut down by government demand in their local region, according to the Food and Drug Administration and Charlie Wettlaufer, a GoodNature author who discussed this issue on juice bar restaurants during the pandemic.
About 17% of juice companies that completed a survey report an increase in sales during the pandemic. One of these establishments is a the juice bar-restaurant in the inner-city neighborhood of Canarsie.
“Our family was one of the first juice bars in Canarsie to open up,” said Karlie Napoleon in a phone interview.
“Restaurants around us were scared to stay open due to the pandemic getting bad so it was a conscious decision to stay open when COVID first started,” she said.
As a family, they decided to keep the business running, and to keep people coming, they had to think outside the box with what their customers could order, according to Napoleon. They were the only standing juice bar left and customers kept coming back for more.
“Ginger and turmeric immunity booster shots were popular once COVID came about, wellness shots have antioxidants and Vitamin C that are great for building the immune system,” she said.
People are looking to increase their intake of immunity-strengthening nutrients, which is why it is proven through statistics that juice bars that have these ingredients have been able to make sales.
“We started selling homemade remedies we were doing within our own home. We sold homemade teas, sticking to our roots,” Napoleon said.
Other healthy menu options were fresh-pressed juice smoothies with ingredients including beets, spinach, ginger, pineapple, and kale as well as salads customizable with different toppings.
Panini wraps and grilled chicken were popular as well.
Napoleon said for a month and a half it was great but it started getting harder, she left the store due to anxieties and pressures, especially from her family who were concerned about their safety.
“If you did not have a sign explaining that customers needed a mask before coming in as well as a vaccination card, later on, there would be a $5,000 fine by the Health Department,” Napoleon said.
There were many restrictions and as an owner, it was hard to manage everything at once.
“We had to run a business, which is hard within itself, then check vaccinated ID cards, log everyone that came into the shop in a notebook, take care of customers as well as staff, it was just too much to handle and still is,” Napoleon said.
According to Servsafe.com, Serfsave restaurant owners must wash to clean their fruit and vegetables. Once the product is clean, it should be handled with gloves so it isn’t contaminated.
If any staff member is showing COVID symptoms — or has been in contact with anyone with symptoms — he or she should be kept away from the business entirely.
The FDA normally recommends a thorough cleaning every four hours. If it is normally done where a super-deep cleaning of facilities is every week or every month, it is advised to do it every day if possible.
“Taking all these safety procedures and people in the news were dying every day it felt like we were fighting an invisible virus and I became afraid to go out. As an establishment, you are always required to clean everything with bleach water but it seemed like were triple-dosing everything. Eventually, I allowed my workers to stay home and the only ones allowed to work in the shop were family to keep the business running,” Napoleon said.
Managing the restaurant also was somewhat of a chore.
“It wasn’t fun anymore, the masks made it hard to hear along with the barriers surrounding the desk,” Napoleon said.
Juice bars are adapting by offering pick-up and delivery and finding other ways to keep their business going. Uber Eats is waiving its delivery fees for restaurants. Some juice bars are offering drive-through orders.
Juice bars have begun shifting to become more like organic markets, offering organic produce, snacks, and other essential items to their customers, which can fill a need when the local grocery stores are out of stock or don’t offer high-quality health and wellness products, Wettlaufer said.
