Moon Juice Is Rising on Rose Avenue

A new juice bar is about to land in Venice.

Under construction at 507 Rose Avenue, Moon Juice is preparing to open its doors in late July or early August. Coincidentally, that just happens to be around the same time as owner Amanda Chantal Bacon's due date. The 29-year-old is almost seven months pregnant and about to birth two dreams: launching her own shop and starting a family.

Moon Juice will offer a menu of raw juices hydraulically extracted and bottled throughout the day. The shop's method of extraction minimizes heat and oxidation, ensuring that the cellular structures of the fruit, vegetables and leaves are not disrupted and preserving living enzymes and nutrients to produce juice that lasts for up to 96 hours. The Moon milk bar will serve house-made nut milks, and the shop will carry wholesome snacks.

Bacon is excited about the small spot on Rose Avenue, saying it reminds her of the energized, small spaces in her native New York City where people squeeze in and out all day long.

Since leaving Manhattan more than 10 years ago, Bacon attended culinary school in Vermont and then practiced her craft in Italy, New Zealand, Buenos Aires and Uruguay. Before settling in Venice a year ago, she lived on the Eastside where she worked for a stint as the assistant food editor at the LA Times Magazine and was involved in opening and briefly running a restaurant called Forage in Silver Lake.

Bacon's entrée into Los Angeles came when she wrote a letter and received a response from Suzanne Goin, award-winning chef and owner of Lucques, The A.O.C., The Hungry Cat and Tavern. Although Bacon was green in the kitchen, Goin agreed to give the young chef a chance to apprentice with her.

“I couldn't ask for better training in the kitchen,” Bacon said.

For as long as Bacon has been cooking in kitchens, she has been juicing with her Green Star Juicer.

“After tasting things all day, the sweetest relief was having a juice when I came home. From a flavor standpoint, when your palate is laden with salts and fats and things that are braised and grilled and cooked, it's a relief to taste fruits and vegetable that are alive, bright and pure. Juicing was my savior,” she said.

One day, Bacon realized that by the time she shopped for the ingredients, juiced and cleaned the juicer, juicing was like a full-time job. That's when the idea struck to change her lifestyle and open her own shop in the neighborhood where she had always wanted to live. Picking a name for her spot was as natural as its conception. One misty morning she was sitting by a beach in San Francisco. Suddenly, a hippie bus drove out of the woods with a beautiful mural of a moon surrounded by a galaxy. It was simple: Moon Juice would be the name of her place.

“Everybody can feel at home at Moon Juice," Bacon said. "It does something for the neighborhood when there is a special place that you have a relationship with."