Community Highlights: Meet Brendan Fung of Squeeze Juicery

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brendan Fung.

Hi Brendan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Yes, my name is Brendan Fung and I have a relatively long and winding path that brought me to the point where I am today. Hailing from the Midwest, I have called Denver home for 8 years and in that time have I worked in the outdoor sporting industry, data science industry and most recently, started an outdoor social club that was shelved due to the COVID pandemic.

Looking for time to reset and figure out what direction to go in next, I headed down to Sayulita Mexico for an extended stay, and that’s when the story of squeeze juicery begins.

Juice was, simply, never a huge part of my life growing up. Unless you consider the glass of apple juice while watching Sunday morning cartoons as a kid or the drop of orange juice in my mimosa as an adult.

Despite being a healthy person, a marathon runner, a cyclist, a yogi, an outdoorsman, and a vegetarian, juice was something that was always just too out of grasp. It was expensive, it was overly complicated, it was hard to find and therefore, it was never on my radar.

The notion of what cold-pressed juice could be changed for me during this trip, not just as an affordable and accessible product, but also as a community builder. Little windows along the streets opened their shutters each morning, drawing in a crowd of regulars who would sit, chat, drink juice, and catch up before heading on to their respective days.

The employees, the same each day, knew the regular drinks, knew the faces and knew how cold-pressed juice could make us better, healthier, and more balanced people.

Returning to Denver, I recognized an opportunity across the existing industry to center a community around cold-pressed juice. Fast forward several months and that’s when things picked up.

I was connected with the new real estate technology startup, REACTIV, and realized that I could bring this concept to life with manageable overhead by utilizing REACTIV’s marketplace to find an operational space. I accessed the digital marketplace and searched for a shared restaurant space where I could activate this concept during an existing business’ off hours. Finding a perfectly located space in Denver’s LoHi Neighborhood, I then messaged the host, set up a site visit, came to an agreement, booked through REACTIV’s platform and was able to launch my concept in under a month.

With REACTIV’s innovative marketplace connecting me with an underutilized space, squeeze juicery was born! We have been bringing the community feeling from Sayulita to Denver ever since.

I opened our window on March 20 and was met with an overwhelming amount of business and support from the local neighborhoods. In the first weekend alone, I exceeded expectations by 300%, serving 90 community members, and providing more than 480 fruits and vegetables to those people via cold-pressed juice. After eight days of operation, squeeze juicery was a profitable business!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road to where I am today has been incredibly trying and turbulent, yet fulfilling in every way possible. From little direction post-grad to a standard desk job to a tech startup to building a failed business and now a successful one, I have faced a number of opportunities to keep the status quo or quit outright. Through and through, I always incorrectly believed that the one thing holding me back was other people and unavoidable circumstances. When projects went wrong, or deliverables took too long, or permits weren’t obtained in a timely manner, it was easier to look outwards and place blame on extraneous factors .

So, it wasn’t until I flipped that script in my head and began to rely on my own strengths and capabilities that I truly began to grow and succeed. The lesson is that you are only as good as the effort that you, yourself, are putting in. No one else controls your future or successes, so the time to take matters into your own hands was yesterday.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Squeeze juicery is the first of many businesses that I hope to build that truly converge community and health in an approachable, affordable, and authentic manner. Built from the simple idea that deliciously-crafted, nutrient-packed cold-pressed juice should not just be available to the higher socio-economic consumer, I set about generating a model that not only brought those prices down, but also made the product as fresh as possible. Pressed on the spot and to your liking, squeeze has taken an all new approach to an industry that is so accustomed to bottling, and therefore traditionally takes a step back from their customer.

Add in that we conduct all our business from a storefront window, and squeeze has truly become the place for neighbors and Denverites to casually swing by, chat with fellow patrons, and feel connection during a time when connection is so fraught.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I firmly believe that the wellness industry will continue to integrate connectivity and community into everything that they do. The world has experienced what it is like to be isolated from one another and from those around them. And from here, it’s what consumers will be seeking: authenticity in each interaction, intimacy in their purchases, and loyalty to the people behind the brands.

Contact Info:

• Email: squeezejuiceryco@gmail.com
• Website: www.squeezejuicery.co
• Instagram: squeezejuiceryco

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