Steven Potter
Saints Madison Juice Co. founders Jo Um, at left, and Joyce Cullen stand in front of the shop's Instagram wall. It's a popular spot for customers to take photos and selfies.
When Joyce Cullen and Jo Um moved to Madison, there was one thing the friends craved but couldn’t find: their favorite juice.
They wanted cold-pressed juice made with fresh, raw, unprocessed ingredients. They’d come to love it not only for its flavor but also as a quick meal replacement with high nutritional value.
“We didn’t always have time to prepare a healthy meal,” says Um, who moved to the Madison area from Chicago and often travelled in her former job as a fashion designer for Lands' End. “But we still wanted something fast, convenient and healthy,” adds Cullen, a Portland native who worked previously as a physical therapist at UW Hospital.
They decided to feed their fix themselves. On August 26, they opened Saints Madison Juice Co. at 821 Williamson St., selling a number of cold-pressed juices and “nut mylks.”
Cold-pressed juice differs from the processed and pasteurized kind. At Saints, it’s even made with a different process from other fresh juices. Saints uses a large hydraulic juicer that looks something like a tank’s gun turret. The fruit goes in the chute, is chopped and then falls into cloth bags. Then it goes into a large reservoir where it’s filtered and strained.
Um and Cullen decided against a centrifugal juicer because it heats the juice, which reduces nutrient levels. They also don’t like auger juicers, as they introduce oxygen, which reduces shelf life, and they find them to be less efficient. “Our primary concern is to maintain the integrity of the juice and the hydraulic press is the gold standard,” says Cullen.
Um and Cullen recommend their juices be consumed within three days of production: “The juice someone buys that afternoon was likely pressed and bottled that morning,” says Um.
The nine juices range from Radiant Greens (cucumber, pineapple, romaine, fennel, mint and orange) and Serenity Now (grapefruit, lavender, honey, cayenne) to Exorcist (lemon, agave, activated charcoal), a drink supposedly great for hangovers to Upbeet (beet, carrot, apple). Juices cost $7.25 for 16 ounces.
Saints also sells a handful of nut mylks (spelled to underline that they’re not dairy), including Superblue (cashew, dates, cinnamon) and Cacao Bomb (almond, raw cacao, dates, sea salt). Also on the menu are two shots: Hot Sh!t (apple, lemon, echinacea, oil of oregano, turmeric and ginger) and Tummy Tamer (grapefruit, aloe and mint). The mylks cost $8.75 for 16 ounces and the shots are $4.50 for four ounces.
The juices can be used in tandem as a cleanse and the owners welcome questions from novices and those who are curious, says Cullen.
Saints now offers pre-orders and delivery for $10 within a 10-mile radius of the store. Saints is open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
The name “Saints” refers to juices getting people back to being healthy and eating healthy, most of the time. “No one is virtuous and good all the time and the key to life isn’t being good all the time, it’s balance,” says Cullen. “That’s why our tagline is ‘sin, Saints, repeat.’”
