By Linda F. Hersey
FAIRBANKS, ALASKA — Stephanie Allen counted down the days, then hours, until she would shutter forever the only retail shop in Fairbanks dedicated exclusively to cold-pressed juices made to order.
Go Wild! Juicery was always something of a misfit on outer Lathrop Street, wedged between an ax-throwing club and the stripped-down Sun Dog gym, which Allen and her husband started. The vitamin-packed beverages gave fitness fanatics the bracing refreshment they craved after a workout, from dark green wheatgrass shots to improbable mashups of veggies, like beets, carrots and ginger sweetened with apples.
items during the last week in operation.
Where else could a local grab an iced Chagaccino first thing? The handmade coffee drink mixed with foraged chaga mushrooms is not really comparable to Red Bull or other off-the-shelf caffeine drinks.
Word soon spread beyond the gym, bringing in the truckers and welders and gas station jockeys who worked in the industrial neighborhood. Go Wild! Juicery did not have customers as much as it had a following.
“This has been our community,” Allen said. Seven years flew by, and Go Wild! Juicery was pressing through the final days. Stephanie and her daughter, Abby, were closing the family-run business and moving to Hawaii, where Stephanie’s husband, a military veteran, works as a civilian with the U.S. Army.
Stephanie was traveling between Hawaii and Fairbanks for a year after her husband transferred from Alaska. Abby and her boyfriend managed the juice shop and also started selling handmade vegan foods.
But now they were preparing to close and move to Hawaii, too. The commercial kitchen tools and equipment were tagged and sold at the store last week and also advertised on Facebook Marketplace.
Stephanie was keeping and shipping her mammoth commercial juicer, a gleaming silver contraption that stands about 5 feet tall and comes with long burlap bags to collect the pulp as produce is squeezed.
“This is my dream juicer. This big boy is coming with me,” she said.
They also hosted a week-long farewell party for customers. “We spent the whole day busy in the kitchen prepping a crazy amount of all your favorite cold pressed juices, salads and healthy treats! We’re so excited to serve the Fairbanks community for one last week!” Abby posted to Facebook on July 25.
This was not just one last pitch for sales though they had record-breaking days their final week. Stephanie and Abby actually meant it. That customer-comes-first approach would see them through the final moments of a business that represented their lives — and livelihood — in Fairbanks.
Their products may not leave Fairbanks altogether. Stephanie said that plans are quietly in the works to sell her fruit and vegetable juices bottled through local vendors, but the idea is in such an early stage she could not discuss it.
The Allens are now determined to start afresh on the island of Oahu. Running a cold-pressed juice shop seems to make sense in Hawaii, where the temperature is most always above-freezing and bananas and papayas grow in the wild like salmonberries in the Alaskan bush.
While there are other fresh-juice stores on the island, Stephanie said the “market is by no means saturated. It is not like Starbucks with a juice shop on every corner.”
The Allens cornered the fresh juice market in Fairbanks. Their niche business stood out as a round peg in a square hole. There was nothing else like it.
Now they must recreate the brand with the same determination for a new customer base in the 50th state.
“We’ll have the cold-pressed juices and a few grab-and-gos. But there will be a tropical flair,” Stephanie said. “We will keep the Go Wild! name. But we also will rebrand. Everything will be new and slightly different.”
Fairbanks Daily News Miner, Alaska