"Fear the Lord and shun evil; this will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones." — Proverbs 3:7-8
Wow, oh wow, am I so excited to share my newly discovered secret with y'all! I am writing to my Alpharetta community about my new-found obsession, and I can't wait to hear that y'all love it just as much as I do!
My mom is the absolute worst smoothie maker (sorry mom, but it's true. I still love you though). I remember being in seventh grade and her trying to force a smoothie of milk and pears down my throat. It was no surprise to me when I went home sick later that day having had milk and pears come up in math class. So, you could almost call it PTSD when I see a smoothie that has kale or spinach in it because all I think about are the years of chunky green smoothies with questionable ingredients in them.
Yesterday was the most beautiful day. With a forecast of rain and 50-degree weather, my heart was so happy when I woke up to sunny and 73. I came back home from college for the day to get away from flu-infested Athens, and to enjoy the day, my mom, my brother and I decided to go for a drive. Per my brother's request, we stopped at Chipotle. Now, Chipotle is my brother's favorite restaurant. In the 16 years that he's been blessing our lives, never once have we stopped for Chipotle and not walked out having eaten Chipotle or carrying a bag filled with Chipotle. Yesterday, we didn't even walk inside.
Instead, we stopped by a rustic, open-doored juice bar called 3:8 Juice.
Flowers ordain the central wooden table encircled by bright blue chairs, and the walls are filled with positive sayings, including a large portrait of the verse Proverbs 3:7-8 on it.
We happened to walk inside on their first day of business, and the owners' love for their store was so evident in the love they poured into their customers. We spent the next 20 minutes talking about school, why they opened their juice bar, what hopes they had for it and whether or not care packages from them to Athens could be a thing. These were complete strangers, investing in me in the best way they knew how: free samples and conversation.
My drink was bright green and filled with spinach and kale, which slightly terrified me, but you could not even taste the vegetables you were drinking. My brother — an even pickier version of me with his vegetables and just as scarred by the years of chunky smoothies — did not have a single negative thing to say about the juice (except that it was a very vibrant shade of green). The juices themselves make you feel incredible, and I had an incredible amount of joy and energy after being there. I am extremely particular about which health stores I visit because so many hide behind processed and inorganic vegetables, antibiotics and artificial sweeteners. 3:8 Juice is all-natural and for-probiotics. They don't include artificial sweeteners and still managed to make beet and carrot juice taste good!
I realize this is basically just me rambling on about how good a juice bar was, but I think it was much more than just a few people who knew how to manipulate ingredients to where vegetables tasted good. It was about two people who were personable, who asked me about my life and wanted to know if my brother would try a custom drink they made. It was about people following a dream they had and having something incredible coming out of it. It was about bringing health to your body and nourishment to your bones, and I can't wait to see what they'll think of creating care packages for students like me who will have a hard time going without a Rejuvenator smoothie for a while.
So make your way over to 3:8 Juice, and make sure to tell me how much you loved it too!
