Cold Press Express Squeezes Lots of Fruits and Veggies into Your Glass

If you’re like most people on the juicing bandwagon, you probably love watching someone behind the bar feed fresh fruit and vegetables into a small juicer to make your drink to order. Or maybe you’ve even bought a countertop unit so you can juice at home. According to many experts, the most nutritious juices are ones made using a process called cold pressing. And Las Vegas now has a new supplier in the form of Cold Press Express, opening later this month next to the second SkinnyFats location at Warm Springs and Durango Boulevard, just south of Interstate 215.

The traditional juicing machine you have at home or are probably most used to seeing is called a centrifugal juicer. While they’re great at extracting juice, they also generate heat. “And when you use heat to grind the vegetables, then that heat is killing off all of the nutrition,” says Cold Press Express and SkinnyFats owner Reed Allen Slobusky. (This is the same theory behind the raw foods subculture.)

To combat that problem, Slobusky has purchased cold-press machines, which rely on hydraulics instead of centrifugal force and don’t generate damaging heat. They weren’t a cheap investment, with each entry-level commercial-grade machine costing about $22,000. But he’s certain it will fill an underserved niche in the local market. “People who are into juicing will generally tell you that cold-pressed is the preferred method,” he says.

The juice bar will need to sell a lot of juice (and smoothies, milkshakes and juice blends) to recoup that kind of investment. And that’s the plan. Slobusky’s team will be using that juicer practically from the moment they open at 5 a.m. until closing time. Cold Press Express will produce up to 20 seasonal juice varieties a day that will then be offered on tap at the bar.

The only challenge with the commercial-grade cold press system is that the size of the machine makes it impractical to mix up one order at a time, or even to display it in the bar area. And when people see the lineup of pre-pressed juices at the bar, they might doubt the freshness. So the bar has set up a novel system to show off its operations, hooking up a video feed from the juicing room that connects to a monitor at the bar. “So you’ll see guys in lab coats back there [on the monitor],” Slobusky explains. “You’ll see that they did cucumbers at 9:30 this morning. You’ll see they did carrots at 9:45.” As a result, customers should feel confident their juice is as fresh and healthy as possible.

Now if only I could get past the taste of kale juice, perhaps I’d have better results at my next physical.

JUICE MATH

➜ Grape + honeydew + watermelon + cucumber + bok choy + ginger = Jumping Jacks, a natural energy boost.
➜ Watermelon + cucumber + grape + celery + ginger + spinach = Arm Wrestle, for power and strength.
➜ Honeydew + orange + pineapple + grapefruit + coconut water + celery = Nap Time, for relaxation.
➜ Grape + purple kale + Swiss chard + fennel + broccoli + apple + celery = Hula Hoop, for slimming down.