Juice Bar Added to Wyandotte's Total Health Foods

It’s now Total Health Foods–and drinks.

recently opened a new juice bar in the rear of its building.

Juices, smoothies and wheatgrass shots top the menu. A number of prepackaged raw foods, including lasagna, pizza, salads and desserts, also are available.

The raw foods are brought in daily from

“We knew we wanted to do raw foods, but we don’t have the time to make them ourselves,” said Kathleen Gunther, one of three women who own Total Health Foods. “With this partnership, you can now get something to drink and have something to eat right here.”

The women have wanted to add a juice bar to their store ever since they were located in Southgate.

“One of the reasons we moved down here was for a bigger space so we could put in a juice bar,” Gunther said. “We always knew we wanted one, so coming down here was perfect.”

It was perfect for the local job market, as well, as eight new workers were hired to run the juice bar, Gunther said.

There are 10 juice concoctions and nine varieties of smoothies, but workers said they’re happy to make a customized drink if the ingredients are on hand.

Most of the flavors that are available, including strawberry banana whirl, mango tango and cherry razzle dazzle, were devised by simple taste tests.

“We spent a lot of nights just playing around,” Gunther said. “We would try something and then try something else and eventually, we just came up with the drinks.”

Two of them, however, came about from customers.

Al Bates of  created The Jump Start. The ingredients–beet, apple, kale, parsley, spinach and carrot–are ones he used to juice for himself at home. Now everyone is able to try it out.

Five-year-old Landon Gee, who is the honorary “manager” of the juice bar, created the Landon’s Rock-N-Juice. The simple ingredients of orange, apple and carrots bring a heartwarming smile across the child’s face as he reaches for his drink.

Landon has Crohn’s disease and is accustomed to drinking organic juices. In fact, his mom, Tana, said, the family often cooks and creates juices together at home. But that doesn’t stop them from making twice-a-day visits to Total Health Foods.

“We really are here two times a day,” Tana said. “We love it here.”

In addition to being organic, most of the drinks are gluten free and dairy free.

“We use only real fruit," Gunther said. “We don’t use any syrups and we don’t add any sugar. … Everything is as organic as possible.”

For now, the juice bar is open during regular store hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays. In the fall when the store hours are cut back, Gunther said, the plan is to keep the juice bar open later.