Kiara Smith was taking her son to the doctor for almost a year before she started looking for the answer herself.
Smith founded Fresh and Pressed Juice, a cold-pressed juice bar at 3622 Rochester Road in Troy, Michigan. She opened it in July 2023. Before that, she was a stay-at-home mother whose son had gut health problems, and the shop exists because of what she did about it in her own kitchen.
“Because of the gut health issues, I started researching because I was taking him to the doctor for almost a year straight,” Smith said.
What she found, she kept. “I found that juicing was like a natural gut healer,” she said. “I just started juicing up everything, but beets were like the savior. That’s what really helped restore his gut health.”
She was making juice at home five to six hours a day. Smith said her husband sat her down and told her they had to turn it into a business. Her own answer was that she already knew. “And honestly, I knew it was bigger than me,” she said.
The shop sells cold-pressed juice made from organic produce and bottled in glass, plus smoothies and acai bowls. Customers who bring the bottles back get a credit. Smith worked through gluten-free, dairy-free, and no-added-sugar options, because the first people she was feeding were her own family. Her own site lists shipping to 11 states, among them Ohio, Illinois, New York, Maryland, Virginia and Georgia.
She does not describe the storefront as the finish. “I want Fresh and Pressed Juice to be more than a juice bar,” she said. She wants to open in more communities and to start a nonprofit that teaches wellness and gets nutritious food to families who cannot easily buy it.
The line that explains the whole business is the one about where it came from. “Everything that I do in this juice bar, Fresh and Pressed Juice, is an extension of my home,” she said. “Everything went so smoothly because I feel like it was just my time to do this.”
And the line that explains who it is for is hers too. “Wellness felt overwhelming for me at one point, too,” she said.
