Cold-Pressed Raw Juice Pop-Up Opens at Hillside Supper Club

/ Todd_Lappin

juiceguys

juicetainers

The Hillside Supper Club on the western end of Precita Park began life as a pop-up restaurant, but now it is hosting one of its own. Which is sweet.

Thistle is a weekday cold-pressed juice pop-up operating out of Hillside Supper Club on Monday through Friday from  7 am to 4 pm. Neighbor Ashwin is one of the partners in Thistle, and he tells us:

My partners and I are launching a new health and organic brand called Thistle with our first product being a high quality 100% raw cold-pressed juice. We craft our juice in Berkeley and maintain a commitment to using local, organic and sustainable ingredients. Through farmer’s markets and sourcing with intention, we seek out and develop relationships with only local purveyors who share our commitment to promoting individual health and a healthy environment. We are currently working on developing our branding material but we have a basic website up .

I met Tony and Jonathan [from HSC] through another project on which I am working called WeGoFair, and we wrote a piece about Hillside Supper Club and their commitment to sustainability.

When we started working on Thistle, these guys were on the top of our list to reach out to to discuss partnering. If that wasn’t enough, my wife and I moved to Bernal last month (Folsom + Ripley) and now HSC is a short walk down the hill. (The walk back feels less short.)

It sounds rather awesome.

Still, if you happen to see Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein sipping juice at Thistle, just smile and try not to seem surprised.

PHOTOS: Courtesy of Thistle

47 thoughts on “Cold-Pressed Raw Juice Pop-Up Opens at Hillside Supper Club”

  3. There is NO evidence that using a conventional juicer does any harm to fruits and vegetables. These guys are CHARLATANS! Their juices are overpriced, and their sullen hipster photo looks like a parody. What does it take to get hipsters to smile? Here’s hoping they get real jobs and ditch their hipster thrift store plaid shirts.

  4. are you selling overpriced convenience-juice or are you selling a fashion fad? jesus christ this photo is just awful, sorry you couldn’t find a storefront in the new mission but this is not what our neighborhood is about.

  6. Hi David,
    Thanks for your thoughts. Cold pressed juicing has recently come to the forefront and there aren’t a lot of scientific studies about it, but most experts agree that centrifugal juicers create oxidation which is not as good as cold-pressed. That being said, here is one: http://www.hacres.com/pdf/documents/other-juice-extractor-comparison-2007.pdf It suggests that cold pressed juice has far higher enzyme count than centrifugal juicers.
    On price, we don’t think you’ll find any juice out there at our quality anywhere close to a $5 price point. We use 100% organic and locally-sourced ingredients. We’d love for you to come in and try our juice. Come say hello, your first juice is on us! We promise that we aren’t the un-smiley hipsters that picture makes us out to be!
    Sheel

    • Americans today live 15 years longer and in better health at older ages than they did in 1960. I’m not particularly worried about any lack of enzymes. My diet consists of eating things that interest me and not getting locked into any particular routine. It seems to work for me as most people think I’m 10-15 years younger than I am.

  8. Sheel & Co.,

    Congrats on the launch. Much respect to people who put their time, energy, and money behind an idea. Best of luck, and I will stop by soon to have a taste. Welcome to the neighborhood!

  9. I stopped by yesterday afternoon. Super-friendly folks, delicious juice, and a reasonable price. Plus, I love that it’s run by a neighbor, and it’s a great daytime use for the HSC space. Win. Win. Win. Win. Win.

  10. All in all you might be better off buying the $5.00 juice than the $4.00 latte. Debatable enzyme count or not. For all the juice skeptics ( and I was one ) try one…. you might be pleasantly surprised. Welcome to the hood, it is never simple here in Bernal : )

    • I have a Jack LaLanne juicer, as most of us do who like juices. Considering that Jack LaLanne lived to age 93, I serious DOUBT that the blades in his juicer caused any problems with the nutritional content of his juices. The problem is that these guys are pretending there is some kind of science behind their wild claims. (Well that and the seriously hipster photo.) There is NO science behind it and to pretend so it fraud.

      • The Jack LaLanne juicer was a frequent flyer miles gift. But even so, I’m not going to knock Jack LaLanne’s longevity. He drank juice and ate veggies all his life. While I don’t go into that anywhere near as much as he did, still I look quite fine for my age and I have energy and strength. But again, the juice is not the point; the point is that the blades of a juicer do NOT do anything to harm the fruit and veggies, so the whole premise of the hipster guys is flawed from the get-go.

  11. Thanks for the article, I was wondering who the young gentlemen standing in front of Hillside with an open cooler full of bottles at 9am were. Next time I walk by I’ll try one! And to the haters out there, these young guys are trying to do something entrepreneurial and cool, so give ’em props!

    • There’s nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur. There is a problem with adding pseudo science and woo to a product. These young men are, much like many other companies, taking advantage of the general populations lack of health knowledge.

      • Seems to me their intentions are honest. I’ve also heard lots of pro/con arguments regarding drinking fresh juice vs eating fresh fruit/veg , organic vs. conventional, etc, and as far as I can tell there are lots of arguments on both sides and nothing scientifically conclusive. I don’t know these guys but my sense is they are not trying to fool anyone here, and my intention is to walk the half-block from my house and meet them when they are selling their product this Monday morning to learn more.

  12. Sheel, what a sweet, gracious reply. You know how to take a (totally undeserved) punch! I’m fine with people critiquing a business concept, but the negativity here regarding ethics and plaid shirts is over the top. Best of luck to you entrepreneurial young fellas. Juice is good.

  13. Thanks for all the love! Regarding sustainability, we are actually in the process of doing a full life-cycle analysis to understand the full environmental impact of our decisions. We look in detail at the magnitude of various environmental impacts along each step of our product lifecycle in order to understand the key drivers of sustainability as it relates to Thistle. For example, it is critically important for us to understand whether our carbon footprint is driven by the transportation of our glass juice containers vs. the agricultural inputs need to grow our produce vs. the numerous other factors that come into play. Our goal is to use this to prioritize our sustainability initiatives and make transparent and available verifiable quantitative information to our supporters in order to support any claims we make.

    Also, the photo was very much tongue-in-cheek – we’re happy that it sparked such lively conversation! Excited to meet all you at HSC soon – we’re super excited to be here!

    Cheers,

    Ash

    • will you also being doing a study in how many buzz words you need to use to make it sound as if you are saying something profound rather than just doing good old fashioned marketing spin?

  14. What makes fruits and vegetables so healthy is their fiber. Juice is a sham, people– just EAT your fruits and vegetables. This talk of “vitamins, trace minerals, enzymes and other vital elements” is hooey. Just ask a nutritionist or doctor. No extraction needed: just eat fruits and vegetables.

  15. 3 guys wearing plaid. Check. 2 guys wearing 50’s geek glasses. Check.One guy wearing an old-timey mustache. Check. One pop-up shop. Check. $5 bottle (small) of what? Check.
    Hipster juice by hipsters.

  18. The hipster affect is a bit much and they are out of Berkeley. I like pseudo hip Precita Park Cafe’s variety of juices and smoothies and they add extra stuff when I request it. Plus their juices made to order are twice the size for about the same cost. I’ll choose to support my neighborhood businesses first but good luck. I’d probably be a bit more inclined to go to Harvest Hills as well to support the neighborhood. Glad to see juice has become so fashionable and so expensive

  19. Five bucks for 100% organic fresh juice is actually pretty reasonable. At least compared to most of the other juice shops throughout the city. Pressed juicers in Noe is like 7 or 8 and they are shipped from LA (and I don’t know what % is OG) How much is a bottle of odwalla juice, which is pasteurized and probably not OG? Not sure why people are complaining about this. Unless they are growing all of these fruits and veggies themselves I can’t imagine they are making that much margin here. Seems like they are providing a good service.. Psyched to check them out.

  20. I haven’t gotten the juice at the Progressive Grounds coffee shop. What kind of juice do they offer? Are they using all organic ingredients?

    • Have you considered asking Aziz or Marco yourself? Aziz is mostly at Cortland and Marco at Bryant. I’m sure they’ll tell you everything you need to know.

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