Eat All About It: Good karma revives juice business at Southridge

A juice bar that launched in the Great Recession and closed is back in business in Kennewick.

Kati Gessner reopened Karma Juice in October, about eight years after she first used her interest in holistic health to open a similar business at Kennewick’s Marineland Village shopping center, at Clearwater and Edison.

The original, Karma Juice Bar, lasted about 18 months until the economic downturn forced her to close.

“I sat down and cried the last night we sold off our last piece of equipment,” Gessner recalled.

Karma Juice Bar may have failed, but Gessner’s dream did not. Two years ago, she revived it in spirit as a delivery business.

She fielded orders online, prepared beverages at The Hub’s commercial kitchen in Richland, and three mornings a week, she delivered them to customers. She used the delivery-based business to rebuild her clientele and her savings account. Reopening Karma as a brick-and-mortar business was always the goal.

The plan worked when she met Liv Berg, owner of BlankSpace, a community gathering and event space off Ridgeline Drive in Kennewick’s Southridge area. Berg invited her to establish a juice bar inside the space.

She funded the new Karma with savings and a small business loan, keeping her overhead as small as possible to start.

“It was scary. I did not want to have to go into big debt,” she said, noting that she learned that lesson the hard way with the original Karma.

With Karma, Gessner said she’s fulfilling her dream of encouraging health of the mind, body and soul.

She has taught Pilates and is a certified reflexologist.

“I love fueling our bodies with foods that are healthy and good. I love the idea of helping others,” she said.

Karma serves all natural beverages without using purees. When possible, she used local and organic ingredients, including local lavender honey for a sweetener.

If all goes well, Gessner will open more Karma locations in the future.

“I would love to have a juice bar in each of the three cities,” she said.

Karma’s winter hours are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Its summer hours are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. It is at 5453 Ridgeline Drive. Karma is also on Facebook at facebook.com/karmajuice222.

This story was originally published January 24, 2017 at 1:57 PM with the headline "Eat All About It: Good karma revives juice business at Southridge."