Today we’d like to introduce you to Wen Kosters-Qin.
Wen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I graduated from University of Houston, Conrad Hilton College of Hotel & Restaurant Management. I have been working in the hospitality industry for over 20 years, started in Shanghai, China before I came to the United States. I worked in the food & beverage industry (full service and quick service restaurants, bars), lodging industry (full-service hotels, front desk, housekeeping, banquet).
I always wanted to start my own business. After my first son was born, I decide to take the opportunity to create a lifestyle with more flexibility, after traveling around the world, I found this juice business align with my value and what I believe. I believe fruits and vegetables are the best things this world has to offer us.
I found the Sustain Juicery concept in 2013 and brought it to Houston. After a year to learning, researching and development, we opened our first Houston location in City of Southside place located in the middle of the greater Houston area on May 3, 2014 (2nd location of the brand, 1st location is in Downtown Los Angeles. I had been working everyday since then.
In 2017, I created the JuiceWell brand as our growing brand and opened the first JuiceWell in Houston Greenway Plaza area. It is called JuiceWell Cold-Pressed Juicery and Health Bar. Our concept is a cocktail bar setup but we don’t sell alcohol, all our concoctions are made from whole natural ingredients (fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, etc.) Promoting healthy lifestyle in the community as well as sharing health tips with our customers.
We opened our 3rd location in City of Hedwig Village (Memorial area) in March 2019 and 4th location in Memorial CityCentre development in July 2019. We have four locations currently and all of them are owner-operated by myself.
I think the factors got where we are today is:
Trying my best to give customers the best quality possible for their money (Product value, organic and local when available).
Being consistent, keep doing what we do, no cutting corners (I believe consistency is key to success).
Being involved on daily basis, being passionate of what we do (if you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life.
Know your numbers (Math is my strength, was engineering major before I switch to Hospitality major).
Treat people the way you want to be treated, I don’t serve anything that I won’t feed my family with.
Has it been a smooth road?
Of course not. I don’t think any road to success would be a smooth road. It is a road of continuously learning, growing, and struggling. If it is that easy, then everyone will be doing it.
Restaurants are known to have a high failure rate. For a juice bar like ours, our high cost leads to a high price, plus Texas is not as healthy compare to east and west coast, we really only cater to a particular group of people who are health conscious and trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Other than those customers, we also serve customers who have health issues but prefer to improve their health using food as their medicine.
Here are a list of struggles:
Dealing with local/organic/fresh produce requires daily inventory management, availability changes with different seasons when dealing organic/local produce.
The generation change leads to workforce change, young workers now have different mentality.
Many startups have very limited financial resources.
Our business is not a franchise with years of operations, I have to create everything myself, wear many hats, easily distracted.
Environment (Weather, disaster, Ex. Hurricane Harvey).
Time management between business and family.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the JuiceWell story. Tell us more about the business.
We make fresh raw cold-pressed juices in house. We make all our products from scratch.
Here is a list of things we do:
We have been committed to use glass bottles for our juices since the beginning even it is not cheap or convenient, we offer our customer $1 credit for each glass bottles they bring back, we rinse, wash, and reuse.
We focus on shop local and organic when available, from local farms and farmers’ markets.
We try to make everything from scratch and not to shop premade ingredients (ex. we make our almond mylk in house, we crack fresh coconuts to get coconut water and scoop out fresh coconut meat to use as an ingredients.
We make our juices in small batch to ensure quality, we also provide customized juicing service upon request.
We provide complimentary juicing consultation, personalized custom juicing plan, delivery to your doorstep.
100% transparency in ingredients, we list all ingredients, there is no secret ingredient.
We give our vegetable pulp from juicing to local farms for compost.
We focus on supporting local businesses (farmers’ market businesses).
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
According to multiple online sources, cold-pressed juicing industry will be around 10 billion markets by 2025.
I think more people will appreciate and support local juice bars who make fresh cold-pressed juices in house.
Consumer awareness towards high nutritional diets is growing rapidly. People start realizing the problems in typical American diet, refine sugar, fried food, bad carbs, etc.
More and more people start watching out for what they put in their bodies. Where are their food coming from (food sources)? Organic or conventional (GMO? Pesticides? etc.)? Locally made from scratch food or factory mass-produced processed food?
The trend of dairy-free, gluten-free, low carb, low sugar, vegan, vegetarian, plant-based, non-GMO, organic, etc. These trends are real and maintain its momentum, not a FAD.
Pricing:
- Cold-pressed juices $10
- Customizable Acai/Pitaya Bowls $9 and up
- Dairy free smoothies $8
- Shots $3
Contact Info:
- Address: 3773 Richmond Ave 1B, Houston TX 77046
9317 Katy Freeway B, Houston TX 77024
797 Sorella Ct 108, Houston TX 77024
4061 Bellaire blvd G, Houston TX 77025 - Website: www.juicewellonline.com
- Phone: 8326107808
- Email: info@juicewellonline.com
- Instagram: juicewellhouston
- Facebook: @juicewellhouston
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/juicewell-houston
Image Credit:
Abizer Raja
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