Sip Boozy Fruit Juice at Shady Acres’ latest opening, Juicy in Kennedy Town

The cousins behind Shady Acres’ new venture into the fruit juice world and hip streets of Kennedy Town, Juicy, are welcoming friends of the neighbourhood and afar to the launch of the family’s latest F&B venue.

Opening early February 2022, Juicy is Shady Acres’ latest F&B foray, bringing fresh juice, spicy cocktails, nutty sandwiches, and an enviable 9 AM to 12 PM happy hour to Forbes Street.

This weekend on Feb. 19 and 20, Juicy will be launching their official opening party and celebrating their one-week birthday by giving out free truffle cheese toasties with every juice drink purchase from 8 AM to 6 PM.

Juicy is currently operating as a temporary pop-up concept for the team running Quality Goods Club, with a future in expanding the space to a functioning bar once the current epidemic situation allows it.

Under current COVID-19 restrictions in the city, dining indoors after 6 PM is banned and businesses with nightclub licences have been shuttered, leaving the Soho live music venue and restaurant unable to welcome guests for a drink.

Shady’s owners struggled to find constant work for their bartending team during the debilitating restriction period. The opening of Juicy revived the Quality Goods Club spirit in Kennedy Town’s bustling street scene and allowed the staff of the Club to maintain a livelihood in tough times.

“We had the space and we wanted to [create] a daytime [venue] for socialising and drinking, so we engaged with Kennedy Town’s amazing local expat population and brought Juicy to life,” co-founder Alex Gilmour told The Beat Asia.

“I really like fresh juice and projects driven by fresh produce, there’s so much fun you can have with it. So, we pushed down that realm, saw a hole in the market and pushed into it. People like the juices. This is a space that we can explore in the future for events and menus.”

Their funky juice menu boasts 10 cool combinations of fresh produce sourced directly from Hong Kong suppliers, such as the kale-pineapple “O’Kale” and coconut, pineapple, and orange-infused “Coco Loco.”

Shots of booze can be injected into a fresh drink for HK$50, sandwiches from the Quality Goods Bodega kitchen can be bought for HK$120 and up, and Brooklyn Lager and Somersby can be drunk on-tap.

Only within the first week of opening, the Juicy team has been matched with the warmth and support from the community of Shady Acres’ lovers.

“In the first week, it was actually really fun and more progressive than I was expecting it to. People were engaged with the concept. People were very, very supportive of the staff, but also the Quality Goods Club vibe.”

Juicy is the fourth venture out of five with the team at Peel Street’s neighbourhood bar, Shady Acres, which opened in 2019. Chicken enthusiast restaurant, Honky Tonks Tavern, opened in 2020, followed by the launch of Quality Goods Club in August 2021. The team is set to open the group’s second venue in Kennedy Town in March this year, Mendel’s Deli, a Jewish-style diner.

The concept behind the site has an adaptability about how and where the juice can be sipped. “Because there's a booze element and a sandwich element to it, we could take [Juicy] off-site and put it in somebody's house really quickly, and create an experience at home for them,” Alex said.

“Realistically, as long as this is a viable business that supplies our staff with paid hours of work, we will keep it up. We've got good people and a good product, and the staff are happy to work here. So, we have got some really cool things in front of us, it's a lot of fun.”

“Juicy gives a real opportunity to showcase the neighbourhood that we are here to stay. We've got some cool products that they can really rely on.”