Eric Helms cares about the details.
The 52-year-old Virginia native is the founder-CEO of Juice Generation, which has spent 25 years serving protein shakes and green juice to busy New Yorkers. While many speciality health stores might tout a cult following, as Helms sees it, Juice Generation's customer is impossible to pin down. "They're cab drivers. People walking into work. Young moms. Yoga fans. Hedge fund guys on their break. It's a real cross-section, and I don't want to be an elite business that caters to one demographic."
It's that commitment to mass appeal—balanced with deep knowledge of evolving customer desires—that's kept Helms running his company entirely by himself. Since 1999, when he scraped together the funds from teaching swimming to open the first location in Hell's Kitchen, Helms has steadfastly refused to accept investor funding. He's also refused to expand beyond New York City, explaining that he knows this market best, and sees the brand as having a "long-term relationship" with New York.
Most of all, Helms' scrappy beginning—and deep fondness for each of his 20 locations—has encouraged him to find satisfaction within his own control. The fact that he can decide which markets are the proper fit, and which juices deserve to remain on the menu, are worth more than any investor cash.
Helms told Fortune what he misses about his first job, what he wishes today's entrepreneurs would stop doing, and the biggest mistakes he made (they involve "chokeberries").
The following has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.
Juice Generation has been in business for 25 years. Why haven't you taken the leap to expand further—beyond New York, for instance?
I don't think success equals scale. As an entrepreneur, to me, the ultimate win is to make your own decisions, and to grow when you want to grow, and to do what you want to do. I've never built a business with the intention of selling it. My goal is not to retire and live comfortably. I opened a business and built a business to operate a business—that's the difference.
I never thought that scaling was the ultimate goal. Waking up and making decisions that you want to make, and not having a gun put to your head that you have to open 10 stores because you took money from investors—no. I'm accountable to customers and to my team. And I'm really comfortable with that.
I worked in chaos for a long time during the huge juice boom, and I wasn't happy doing that. We were opening three or four locations a year, and it was a pivotal time for me, because I realized I would like to slow down and do what I want to do, and guide the business with controlled growth. That was the best decision I ever made as an entrepreneur.
What you're saying strikes me as a not-very-American approach to business.
That’s because I prioritize my personal happiness. And I make decisions based on how they're going to affect my life, who I'm going to spend my time with, and what I'm going to do during the day. I am selfish; I want to do things that make me happy, and I want to be around people that I enjoy, and I want to learn new things. I don't work in a calculated way. I always have maybe 20 projects bubbling that we could be developing for years. And when something seems authentic and natural—like launching gelato—we embrace it and run with it. That's how I make decisions.
So why do other entrepreneurs expand and take investor money?
I think we're programmed that success equals scale. My career trajectory is unusual because I was a shopkeeper for many years. I was a guy in an apron, and I swept the sidewalk, and I opened a little store in Hell's Kitchen, and I loved it and felt extremely fulfilled. At the end of the day, I felt like I had accomplished something.
When the juice craze happened in the mid-aughts, I decided to insert myself and ride the wave, so to speak. And I sort of put my life into chaos. Even at that time, I didn't want to be controlled by investors and be told what to do. So I used profits from one store to open other stores. And I'm glad I did, but I worked incredible hours and had lots of anxiety.
I was friendly with two of the other owners of pioneering juice companies, Organic Avenue and Liquiteria. The three of us were friendly competitors. And we would occasionally get together for lunch. They both went the route of getting investors involved in their business. And I watched as they were systematically dismantled and made horrible decisions in real estate. Just creatively, they really took the wrong turns. That affected me, and I thought, I'm never going to let that happen.
What were your early days like?
When I opened the first Juice Generation [in 1999], there was no açai in the city. It was so early, when we started to serve açai, we had a pronunciation key in the store, because no one could pronounce it.
Starbucks had also just opened their first New York City locations, so the idea of a beverage-only business was very foreign to people. And I think a blessing for our company was that we opened in the theater district, and the Broadway community and the artists and performers totally embraced us. They needed fuel. It was the right location at the right time.
So even before the boom, having artists that were very much attuned to their health and wellbeing—I was fortunate that a lot of those performers told me what they wanted. The menu really was formalized in those years when I was in the store and just listening to people.
The 2009 juice boom was about the juice cleanse. Green juice and kale and all of that was the second wave. Initially, people went crazy over a juice cleanse. And I had a little store on 72nd Street, which was next door to what would become the first SoulCycle. They wanted to do a soul cleanse, so we worked on that together. They were about to be partnering with Equinox. And we partnered with Salma Hayek for the cleanse, which was also like, the greatest thing because we had a huge celebrity. That was how we sort of inserted ourselves into the juice trend. That was sort of our entry into that.
I made all the mistakes. The first few years you were under the radar, and I don't have that many customers. So all the mistakes you can make, I made. I also learned how to do everything in the store. I learned what recipes worked, I learned what didn't. But most importantly, I learned how to standardize the business. I had a great team and I had advisors come in and teach me. So by the time I was ready to start expanding and opening quicker, and having more money to build more expensive stores, I had it down and I knew how to train people and I knew how to standardize. So I was in a good space; all those years were like my education in the juice business.
Tell me about two mistakes you made.
I could tell you about 100—pick your favorites. I had a lot of luck introducing superfruits in the beginning. Like I mentioned, we were the first to bring Sambazon into the city. I heard mangosteen was going to be allowed into the U.S.; at that time, it was banned. So it had a very romantic, sexy vibe to it.
I had a lot of hustle. I called a farm in Southeast Asia, and bought mangosteen. We got a lot of attention for that, so I was feeling myself a little bit. A farm had reached out to us about aronia berries, and I thought aronia berries would be the next big thing. We bought an entire crop of aronia berries at great expense, and no one could have cared less about aronia berries. We couldn't give them away.
And then a year later, we did a huge deal with jackfruit—nobody cared, not good. That kind of ended my superfood sleuthing, and my desire to find and introduce fruits. Big mistakes come when you’re feeling yourself, and you're on a roll and you think you can keep going.
I don't think you can build a health regimen by following trends. And I don't think you can build a strong business based on trends. So I never thought of building this business as a trend. There have been so many businesses from out of state coming and opening in New York and closing. It's just sort of the natural trajectory of juice. I think the ones that had loyalty and were authentic—meaning us—kept their customers. I think the ones that didn't were sort of fly-by-night and based on a trend, and we saw them close.
So how does your store thrive in a precarious environment?
I asked myself that a lot after COVID, because it was a tough couple of years. We’d spent a tremendous amount of money on corporate stores in office areas. Our top five stores all had huge opening costs and a big fat rent every month. Obviously, those were the stores that took the biggest dip for us, which really affected us during COVID and thereafter. But we did see last year, the numbers came back nicely, and we hit where we were in 2019. And this year, year-to-date, our same-store sales are up 8%. For a business that's 25 years old, it's extremely gratifying. I think again, authenticity, and just being constantly evolving, and offering people what they want and a good quality product—that’s the key.
What keeps you New York-centric?
I know the market really well. I've been here over 30 years; I feel really comfortable here. I know our customer. That's where I want to be; that's my decision. I've ventured out before and looked in other markets, and actually signed leases in other markets, but I always pulled back at the 11th hour. I stepped into Los Angeles for a bit in 2019, and signed a couple of leases, but I pulled out before we did construction, and I was so grateful to have done that.
It’s tough to open three or four stores in a big market like Los Angeles, just like I think it's tough for competitors to come from out of state and try to take on the New York City market. Every fast-casual restaurant surviving in New York City is a badge of honor. It's a real struggle. I think people don't know what to expect. There's high rent, and I think a New York City customer is very sophisticated. I've seen so many juice concepts come here and find that it’s really tough to make it. And I thought the same for us in Los Angeles.
To what do you attribute your lasting success?
I'm fully engaged, I’m attentive, and most of the people that run the company have been with me for over 10 years. We've been in a relationship with our customer for 25 years. Like any relationship, it has to grow, and you have to pay attention to it. Sometimes we put things out there that don't work, but we're always trying, evolving and changing. And it’s a long-term relationship with New York, and we're very respectful and mindful of that.
Is there a certain financial result or number of store closures or employee turnover or height of margins that would make you reconsider taking VC money?
I would, if the deal were right. I'm not saying I'm not above that. I definitely would. I just don't think I'm the person that's going to go and open 300 Juice Generations in strip malls and airports. It's not my thing. But I mean, if I think it's the right opportunity….
Jamba Juice still exists. I think they're the airport. That's their main station. When I was still wearing my apron, and had three little locations, Jamba Juice arrived, and it was terrifying. They took massive real estate; they opened like 15 huge stores.
Brands have gotten bolder and bolder. Many brands come in—we have them open directly beside us, if you could believe it. But you see brands that just stop evolving and listening to what customers want. That's the danger that large brands face: When you grow so big, and you don't listen to your customer, you lose your way and lose your values. That's what I don't want to have happen.
How does the Ozempic craze figure into your business?
I don't think you can build a healthy lifestyle on a trend. And like I said, I didn't build a healthy business based on a trend. So I think people always come back to something that works, something that's healthy. And I think good nutrition is fundamental to anyone's health regimen. And I think that's what we offer—something delicious and healthy. That’s what I’d say about trends in general.
I also don't think it's been around long enough to know yet if people are using these drugs and then eating Big Macs in their car. You have to hope and assume that people who are so interested in losing weight think of this as a lifestyle, not like ‘I'm going to have a smoothie, and I'm going to be skinny tomorrow.’ That's obviously not the case, so you have to hope that one goes with the other.
I also think the perception that our customer base is people who want to be thin is inaccurate. That's not our customer base. My main mission for the last 25 years has been to make juice accessible to everybody. I think when I'm in a really busy store, I see that our customer is everyone: cab drivers. People walking into work. Young moms. Yoga fans. Hedge fund guys on their break. It's a real cross-section, and I don't want to be an elite business that caters to one demographic. I think so many people are our customers.
Have you or will you soon reach a natural ceiling when you no longer feel the need to expand? And if so, what happens then?
There's so much room for us to expand in New York—in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Long Island. We're looking for space in New Jersey now. When things come about that are interesting, and that I connect with, and seem like they tell a great story for the brand, I’m in. I don't ever want to fit a cookie-cutter mold. That's what I personally want to avoid. If somebody else wants to step in and help with that, perhaps we would consider it, but it's just not my thing. As a business owner, as a creator, it's just not my interest. I'm not saying I'm totally averse to it. We just have to be right, and I’ve had a lot of talks, but it hasn't been right.
Did you consider closing the doors of low-performing stores during the pandemic?
Never even when they were not bringing in any business. Never. Because that was my money. I funded it. When it's your own money that you're putting in the stores, it's serious. We spent a lot of money to build those stores out. I never ever thought of closing them, ever. It's so personal to me. It's something I spent years of my life on. Oftentimes, the store took two and a half years to build. So it becomes very personal when you spend that much time building it.
What were you doing for work when you were 25?
I was teaching swimming lessons full-time. I was a competitive swimmer in my youth. It was the only thing I knew what to do.
How did you refuel after swimming?
Sleep. If you're in the water with children for 10 hours a day, and your back itches, and your hair is all scratchy because of chlorine, you would go home and go to bed. I worked seven
days a week, and I didn't have a health regimen at that time. I was in the pool all day—very physical. And I saved every single penny, until I had $120,000. That's how I opened Juice Generation in Hell's Kitchen.
How old were you when you opened that first location?
I was 27.
What mistake do today’s 27-year-old entrepreneurs make that makes you want to shake them by the shoulders?
They try to scale immediately. Learn your business, know how to do everything. Lead people. If I didn't know how to make the juice. I feel I would feel like a fraud here. They have to know that anything that they've done. I've done that. I’ve taken out trash, I've cleaned bathrooms. I developed the recipes. I can jump on a juicer like everybody else. I'm not as good as they are. But I can.
I worked—you know what I'm saying? I wasn't a guy with money. I was the guy who had to work because I wasn't capitalized. So I learned the business. I knew it inside and out. And I knew my customer too, because I was forced to connect to the customer. I was the only guy in the store.
Had Juice Generation not gotten off the ground, what would you have done?
I was going to be a partner in a swimming school. And I would probably have some type of swimming business teaching kids how to swim. I taught special needs kids how to swim for 10 years. I loved it, but I had to be on 100%—especially with special needs kids, you can never phone it in.
How great would it be if Juice Generation had little stands next to the public pools in New York City?
It would be great. It would be great.
What's your secret to success?
Taking care of myself. I'm really involved and connected to the business. The secret is loving what you do and waking up and wanting to be there and being excited after 25 years. That doesn't happen by accident. I have to work to connect and surround myself with good people who are like-minded.
