When Kiara Smith’s son was two years old, he developed microbiome deficiency which caused him excruciating stomach pain and constipation.
“It was a really awful experience, a little two year old in the back seat bent over screaming ‘My stomach hurts!’ every single day,” she remembers. “As a mom, I wanted to resolve that, like this cannot be [his] life. He can’t be in pain every day.”
Frustrated when doctors didn’t offer solutions that helped and conventional medicine seemed to worsen his condition, she turned to juicing after researching how it could help heal the gut lining. After giving him a combination of fresh beet, celery, and grape juice for a month, Smith says her son’s pain went away, he could use the bathroom again, and he returned to being his “happy, busy self.”
That was in 2019. Now, armed with the knowledge that helped heal her son, Smith is opening her own juice bar, Fresh & Pressed Juice in Troy.
Fresh & Pressed Juice is set to open its doors at 3622 Rochester Rd. on Friday, July 21. It will serve a variety of organic juices, smoothies, and smoothie bowls. Smith says it will have a limited menu for the first six months, but will later offer vegan and gluten-free treats like cupcakes and doughnuts on Friday “cheat days.”
“We also are hosting my community events once a month where we’ll teach you about nutrition and things like that,” she says. “This is a community-based situation. This is not just, come in and pay for these expensive premium juices. No, you’re gonna get a juice, you’re gonna nourish your body and your soul, and you’re gonna learn something in the process, because I want to share what I know.”
Prior to starting her juice business, Smith was a stay-at-home mother of two. She’s also Detroit rapper Icewear Vezzo’s wife. Along with juice, she also removed dairy and gluten from her children’s diet, and got her whole family juicing, which they do “to this day, religiously.”
As she was working to fix her son’s gut issues, Smith was sharing their journey on social media and had several people reach out asking if they could purchase juice from her. This led her to start her juicing business right from her kitchen.
“It would take me five to 10 hours to get these juices produced because I would make like 120 in my kitchen,” she says. “And it did so well that I couldn’t handle it on my own. I’m like, we really have to give this to the public.”
Fresh & Press Juice Bar will prioritize sustainability by selling their juice in 12-ounce glass bottles to reduce plastic waste. The juice names are also affirmations like the “I am Bold” with pineapple, ginger, apple, and blue spirulina, and “I am Flow” with beet, celery, kale, apple, ginger, and carrot. The “I am Flow” blend is based on the juice Smith used to help her son.
She says “I am Bold” is a reflection of her journey to opening her first brick and mortar.
“I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for six years, so this is a bold move for me,” she says. “I’m a mother of two busy, active children, and I have a husband that’s huge … But my family, we’re big on affirmations, so taking care of yourself and your mental [health] is very important. This just affirms that identity every day.”
Fresh & Pressed Juice hours are Monday to Saturday 8 a.m.-6 p.m.
This content was originally published here.
