The Best Juice Bars in Toronto

Little kids are juice junkies. They're on a hamster wheel of sipping a juice, spilling a juice or being offered a juice. When we're young and finicky, our list of acceptable fruits and vegetables is about five items long. Which is why our parents hit us with the juice. Juice sneaks under the radar and quietly delivers vitamins and nutrients to unsuspecting children.

Then we get older and we eat the real thing. We show off with our full fruit bowls and elaborate salads. Juice falls by the wayside. Forget about it, we can barely remember to drink enough water. And there are so many interesting fermented drinks to explore. And the coffee. Oh god the coffee.

Enter the juice bar. Juice bars make juice newfangled and interesting. You don't just drink juice, you design, compose, substitute and supplement it. Virgin orange juice no longer. Beets! Parsley! Wheatgrass! Coconuts! Take all those fruits and vegetables you have been unable to bend to your will (I'm looking at you, kale) and turn them into a refreshing beverage. Juice bars wrangle those tricky pineapples and beets, distilling them down to their tasty essence.

By the time these top juice bars are through with them, fruits and vegetables have turned from something to quench your thirst into protein power-boosting smart smoothies --getting as close as we've come so far to Willy Wonka's three-course-meal gum.

Listed below is a top ten sample of Toronto's juice bars (slash alchemists). Perennial favourite Fresh grabs the number one spot, proving that it has staying power, even if it doesn't always stay in the same place. Vegetarians clearly know from juice, with three of best -- Fresh, Pulp Kitchen, and Sadie's Diner -- all embedded within veggie or vegan restaurants.

Then there are the newcomers, like Sunshine Natural Foods, and their (very) brand new juice bar. Who are showing us that there's still a lot of unexplored potential in juice. Sunshine has the distinction of using the Salba plant in some of their drinks, which gets points for being both ancient and cutting-edge: it was widely used by Aztecs, hovered on the brink of extinction when the Spaniards came, and now is in the application process to be considered a "novel food" by the EU. Take a look in your pantry: how many of your foods have an official "novel" classification? It's okay, I'll wait.

Anyone who has cleaned out their home juicer after running a few pounds of carrots knows why it's nice sometimes to leave it to the pros and their industrial equipment. Who are the pros in Toronto? Well just you read on and see.

Photos of Sunshine Natural Foods (pictured above, and thumbnail below) and Gimme a Squeeze courtesy of Patrick Smith. blogTO Flickr pool photos used below for the St Lawrence Market and The Big Carrot Organic Juice Bar from Metrix X and pcrocks respectively.

Fresh

If Toronto has a juice institution, it's Fresh. From humble beginnings as a traveling juice bar, Fresh (aka Juice For Life) is best known for their evocative juice names. Sip on a Lady bug, swig a Swoosh, and get Breathless. Fresh has been moving around in the last few years, but is now more or less settled into three locations -- Bloor, Spadina & Queen St W. More...

St. Lawrence Market Juice Bar

If there's something better than wandering around St Lawrence Market, it's wandering with a smoothie in hand. Doing an unexpected side business in maple syrup, The St Lawrence Market Juice Bar has shakes, smoothies, and straight-up fresh fruit and veggie juices. More...

The Big Carrot Organic Juice Bar

You're set on juice, but you're spending the day with someone who worships at the altar of caffeine. Not a problem. The Carrot Common juice bar has organic solutions for you both. Feeling peckish? They also serve salads and sandwiches. And ice cream. They really leave you no reason to ever go home. Come early and stay all day. More...

Gimme a Squeeze Juice Bar

It just wouldn't be a juice list if there wasn't least one place that felt like you're walking in the side entrance of someone's house. Filling that need is the Danforth's Gimme a Squeeze. The bright blue juice bar is on a side street, directly opposite Carrot Commons. (It's like an old-fashioned western juice-off.) Try the Orange Pineapple Mint, you won't regret it. More...

Pulp Kitchen

Giving Fresh a run for their naming money (and at around the same price for their juice) is Queen East's Pulp Kitchen. Pulp has an extensive list of juice blends and add-ons (e.g. red clover, gingko biloba, milk thistle), as well as shakes and smoothies. I think I have to get "Everything Nice" next time, just because they used the word "tummy" in the description. More...

Sadie's Diner

Between La Merceria and Sadie's Diner, Adelaide St at Portland has a good thing going. Sadie's is, rather uniquely, a vegan diner. (Because when you think greasy spoon, you think vegan.) Sadie's Diner gets consistently rave reviews, including for its juice. And any juice geek will find it hard to resist the lesser-known supplements, like Fo-To root, Sibertan and P'Darco. More...

The Beet

Since The Junction is the new West Queen West it makes sense that they have their very own organic cafe and store. It is brand new as of 2008, but already has a loyal following, who are willing to overlook a little confusion with a shared TD Bank entrance in order to get their juice and smoothie fix. More...

Sunshine Natural Foods

It's pretty easy to fall in love with Sunshine. The store only opened last year (look out for their 1 year celebrations on May 10th) and the juice bar started pulping last Wednesday. They use all organic ingredients and serve them in biodegradable cups, for a fair price. See above re - fall in love. The Tropicalia blend was designed to be a daytime version of a Pina Colada. Now that's smart. Who doesn't need a midday Pina Colada? More...

Wholesome Market

A Beaches grocery store already known and relied on for their organic and natural foods (especially gluten-free breads), but which also boasts a great juice bar. Once upon a time the Wholesome Market building was a bank. They're doing a good job reversing the karma. More...

Chaser's

"2391B Lake Shore Blvd W" sounded like an awfully long way away to a carless downtown person like me. Until it was pointed out that Chasers' is in Mimico, on the bike route to the Humber bridge. Making it a perfect refueling stop for all the ambitious urban cyclists forging/forcing an east-west connection across the south of the city. Those brave souls deserve all the juice they can drink. More...