There has been something of a sea change in recent years — Miami’s populace will happily go out to eat raw, healthy food and cold pressed juices as long as they are presented beautifully. That means hippies can keep their grungy markets while hipsters, yippies and even Wall Street-types flock to the next generation of health food hotspots.
Early in on this trend is “CPR” which stands for Cold-Pressed Raw. If you think of life-saving therapy when when you hear “CPR”, it’s not by accident—this food will resuscitate you. Tatiana Peisach, a young entrepreneur of 27, started the company as raw, cold pressed juice distributor. “We were focused on wholesale and we just had really good strategic partners,” she explains.
A lot of places carried the CPR juices, but Peisach felt the brand needed it’s own space. “People were drinking our juices a lot, but we weren’t creating the brand we wanted to crete and that’s why we did the retail space. It’s really given us a home”
Now they’ve got a beautiful modern restaurant downtown that serves as a destination for not just juice, but bowls, smoothies and filling salads they are calling “Naked Foods.” These are healthy, mostly raw food dishes like their famous “Zoodles,” raw zucchini noodles they serve with pesto, vegan Parmesean and cherry tomatoes.
“Everything is either wood, stainless, or cement in the store,” explains Peisach, who allows the food and juices to bring the color. Dishes like the Beet and Kale salad, Green Avocado toast on Zak the Baker bread or the Berry Zesty Pie all bring lots and lots of color.
Another bonus about CPR is that unlike some juice companies, a trip there won’t break the bank. “On average, a cold pressed juice is $10-$12 dollars, and we sell ours for $8.” No small difference when you consider a juice-a-day habit, which is exactly what many of her customers have after completing juice cleanses. “We’re trying to make health more accessible to our customers,” says the young entrepreneur.
Downtowners come daily with their laptops, kicking the coffee house habit for something healthier. “Going there is an experience people couldn’t have before with the brand. We are in the heart of Brickell and you have people coming to meet friends, and people coming in with their laptops and doing work and having a healthy lunch. They don’t just grab a juice and run.”
