Best Smoothie Places in New York City

Besides LA, NYC probably has the biggest smoothie culture in the country.

It’s typical to see people walking down the street everywhere with a smoothie in hand. It’s just part of the culture.

You have the business crowd running out for a quick lunch. You have the hipsters with their smoothies. People after work grabbing a smoothie before heading home.

And that’s not to mention the crowds of people who grab a smoothie after hitting the gym, or SoulCycle or FlyWheel.

With that said, there are a ton of smoothie spots in NYC. And I’ve spent enough time in the city to have a pretty strong opinion on all of them.

Now, with all of the recent problems with Corona, many of these places are either closed down or operating at reduced capacity. But that said, I think that they are strong enough to bounce back when things are back on track.

Without further digressions, here are my go to spots for the best smoothies in NYC.

Juice Press

Juice Press is better known as a fresh juice shop. But it’s also a great spot to pick up smoothies. Most of the places on this list are going to be smaller, independent shops. But Juice Press is a really great spot, so I wanted to include it here.

I’ts import to have a few chain spots on the list because not everyone is going to be able to hit the local stores.

They do a few things that I’m not a fan of. Namely the “coffee bean boosters”. These are the little extras that they offer to add to their smoothies.

As a rule I like to keep coffee and caffeine out of my smoothies.

But Juice Press does hit the spot with some nice designs. Though they aren’t really for those on a diet.

Some of their more popular offerings include:

• F’ing Blueberry
• Blue Magic
• Strawberry Banana
• Chocolate Protein

Reason I like recommending Juice Press? Well, for one, they use plant protein in their smoothies. Which I am a big advocate for. Also, they include almond butter in a lot of their smoothies. Also, they are big supporters of using organic produce, which is something I am a huge fan of.

Also, Jucie Press has a good number of locations around the city. They have spots on the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, and most of lower Manhattan.

The Juice Shop

The Juice Shop doesn’t have as many locations as Juice Press, but it does have some prime real estate including Penn Station!

They are less focused on protein smoothies then Juice Press. Some of the more popular smoothies do share the “color scheme” in naming their smoothies. So, you’ll see smoothies like “Blue Monday” and “Purple Rain”.

The Juice Shop is also big on coconut water. That’s something I do like and which isn’t that popular with Juice Press.

My go to smoothie from them would be the Kale smoothie. It’s an interesting one in that it uses grapes for sweetness but also granny smith apples for a clean taste.

Liquiteria

Sadly this one doesn’t exist anymore. There was a time when Liquiteria was the go to place for smoothies in NYC.

In fact, before the advent of the smoothie craze, Liquiteria was the main spot to hit for smoothies. If you wanted a smoothie, then odds were you were going to hit Liquiteria or else Westerly.

It’s been around for for more than 25 years, but sadly it looks to have closed up shop. And this was before Covid hit the city and devastated all of the locations and retail.

I’ve included it here because it’s a landmark smoothie location and one that needs to be on any list of NYC smoothie spots, even if it’s now gone.

Westerly Natural Market

Before there was Whole Foods, there was a great local spot on the Upper West Side. And that place is still there. It’s called Westerly Natural Market.

The market has been around since 1966. It predated the health food craze and many say helped usher in a whole foods movement that ended up creating Whole Foods.

I still prefer to shop at Westerly when I visit NYC. The selection is amazing and the staff is fantastic.

If you compare the workers at Whole Foods and Westerly, it’s a light years difference. The staff at Westerly look like they are health food experts.

In addition to a huge selection of natural products, they also make great smoothies. I’d make this a stop if you want to also pick up anything from raw honey to organic nuts and seeds.

Here’s their InstaGram and you can check out some photos of what they sell.

TasteBuds on Staten Island

Address: 1807 Hylan Blvd, Staten Island, NY 10305

This is one of the coolest spots on Staten Island. It’s not a spot that many people will know about unless you’re traveling around Staten Island for some reason. But it’s a great little store (it’s not even that little).

In addition to some amazing smoothies, it also features some of the best deals on organic foods that you are likely to find.

It’s a family run store and still has the vibe of the local health food stores that you might have remembered from when you were a kid. They are few and far between now, and I really enjoyed stopping into this one.

If you’re in Staten Island, make sure to check this one out.

Steer Clear Of These NYC Smoothie Spots

What I want to focus on here are the smoothie spots to avoid.

And any list of the best smoothie spots wouldn’t be complete without a list of the smoothie spots to avoid. Unfortunately some of the places that used to be good aren’t that good anymore.

Whole Foods- Just No

There used to be a time when Whole Foods was a good place to get a smoothie. But that time has long since gone.

Now, the store is more of a overpriced supermarket. It’s not somewhere you would want to go to buy fresh smoothies, fresh juices, or organic food.

Ever since the corporate takeover of Whole Foods, they have become a huge mega supermarket, be it one that is very pricey.

They are more in line with a Trader Joes than with a Westerly’s or Tastebuds.

What you won’t get at Whole Foods is a cheap smoothie or, frankly, a good one. Part of the problem is that once Whole Foods became a huge mega corporate chain, it went from hiring and staffing experts on nutrition and people who cared about organic foods to your run of the mill cashiers…and I would venture to say that the cashiers at Whole Foods are worse than Trader Joe’s and every other Manhattan upscale market.

Just stay away from Whole Foods unless you’re picking up packaged foods.

Hudson Market

This ties into the Whole Foods reasoning. Anytime you are dealing with fast corporate reatil, in a big investment space, you are going to have to deal with low quality product. And there is nothing exciting about buying a smoothie from Hudson Market.

The entire setup is designed to mimic a real market from when markets existed. Now, many markets are just corporate designed spaces. And this is no different.  I would just skip it and head to somewhere else.

Any Fast-Casual Restaurant

Basically any fast casual restaurant nowadays has a smoothie on the menu. But these range from suspect (the fruit might be frozen or even sweetened with sugar) to bland. And you can do so much better in NYC.

I would venture to say that you can walk down any street that has a fast casual smoothie restaurant and find a better local mom and pop store.

Vegan Resources for New York City Eating (Many cover Smoothies)

I have another update covering good vegan and smoothie resources for New York City. But in the meantime, what I’m going to do is to list some good locations:

Bronx Vegan Restaurants

• BronxNet list
• Vegan Restaurants in The Bronx

Brooklyn Vegan Restaurants

• Brooklyn Vegetarian Restaurants from The Beet

Queens Vegan Restaurants

• Vegan in Queens from A Travel Blog

Staten Island Restaurants

• Vegan Pizza and more
• Vegan Restaurants on Staten Island