With warmer weather approaching, count your blessings that a refreshing bottle of juice is now more easily within reach.
Earlier this month, The Big Squeezy opened what co-owner Kim Matsko calls a “satellite location” inside Alexander’s Highland Market. It’s a juice counter at the grocery’s café area where Big Squeezy products such as juices, almond milks and smoothies are sold. The smoothies are blended on site, but the juices and almond milks are prepared at the flagship store, 3043-B Perkins Road.
Matsko says their presence at Alexander’s helps them connect with a clientele based in south Baton Rouge, Gonzales and as far as New Orleans that was traveling 10 miles or more to get to the Perkins Road overpass area location.
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“We’ve been working with Alexander’s for several years now doing their pop-up farmers markets,” Matsko says. “And we just thought instead of opening a store next door to them, let’s see how we could do something together. It’s really been a great partnership, and people are really excited because it’s a lot closer to them.”
Patrons at the new location will also get to test out The Big Squeezy’s new glass bottles. For about 50 cents more than the normal plastic bottle, the glass option offers a little more juice per bottle and the benefit of reducing your carbon footprint. Return the glass on your next visit (they’d prefer you rinse it out first) and get a discount on your next juice. The glass bottles also keep the juice colder longer and “honestly, it just tastes better in the glass,” Matsko says.
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Starting in May, Big Squeezy also plans to introduce a new item on both menus that doesn’t come in a bottle: acai bowls. The healthy breakfast treat popular in Brazil has become a craze in larger cities, but this might be its first introduction to the Baton Rouge market. The base is acai berries—the tropical fruit and superfood—blended to a sorbet-like consistency and covered in various toppings. The Big Squeezy is working on topping options such as peanut butter, coconut, granola and other berries and fruits.
“We have three specific recipes planned that people will be able to customize,” Matsko says.
In the meantime, Matsko says the success of the original location and the positive response at the satellite location already has The Big Squeezy team thinking about the future. As she told Daily Report recently, they are working on pasteurization methods to get their juices on store shelves. They also have goals for expanding into the Lafayette, New Orleans and northshore markets as well as opening a drive-thru location in Baton Rouge.