• BlueStar Juice Bar & Coffee Cafe

Something seems familiar when you walk into BlueStar Juice Bar & Coffee Café. Even if you’re a first-timer, the place has a way of making you feel like you’re a regular. Owner George Starks has taken his neighborhood coffee house and turned it into a way of life.

Starks—also a book publisher of healthy-lifestyle books for children—first begin juicing fruits and vegetables; brewing and roasting coffee was a bit of an afterthought. It’s hard to say which beverage BlueStar—which opened in 2007—is best known for today, as its niche seems to keep growing.

“We genuinely care for people and for our community and support them by promoting health and wellness in our own way,” Starks says. “Overall, I think we have done a good job in making fresh juice more accessible in general, but … we know that we have a long way to go to get where we want to be.”

As the official coffee of the Slamdance Film Festival and the sole provider of fresh juice and coffee for the Twilight Concert Series, BlueStar is becoming a household name in Utah. Also this year, BlueStar was named City Weekly’s Best Activist Juicers for its generous donations to the Occupy protesters in Pioneer Park.

“The Occupiers who walked from the State Capitol down to Pioneer Park that first day in the pounding rain last fall … actually went out and did something about what they believed,” Starks says. “Like it or not, most Americans would not dare leave the comfort of their daily lives and living rooms to stand up for anything. … I wanted to support them even though I could not be out there with them.”

BlueStar’s second, drive-thru-only location downtown recently began offering delivery service in the area between 600 South and North Temple, and 600 West and State Street. Now there’s no excuse not to get juiced the BlueStar way.

BLUESTAR JUICE BAR & COFFEE CAFE
2795 S. 2300 East
801-466-4280
435 S. 400 West (drive-thru only)
801-462-1730
The-Bluestar.com