Miss Lily's Bakery, Juice Bar, Variety to Launch Saturday

The long-awaited Miss Lily’s juice bar officially opens on Saturday, January 14 and Melvin Major, their veteran juice guy, couldn’t be happier.

"I wake up and I’m ready to make juice," Melvin told Eater on a tour of Miss Lily’s Variety, Miss Lily’s Bake Shop and Melvin’s Juice Box that share the same space on the corner of Houston at Sullivan, next door to Miss Lily’s restaurant.

Major, who has been making juices for Gwyneth Paltrow “for at least 16 years”, Susan Sarandon and many other celebrities, is champing at the bit to start work. He’s going to be making the same juices that earned him his cult following at Lifethyme Natural Market in the Village, but they’ll have different names.

From the entrance on Houston Street, guests will step down into the Variety store, where vintage rare and essential Jamaican records, books, T-shirts and gifts including authentic jewelry will be for sale. It’s an intimate space with a cozy vibe, wooden floors and wooden shutters.

A walk through to the back (there is a separate entrance to Melvin’s Juice Box and Miss Lily’s Bake Shop, on Sullivan Street) opens up into the blue-and-white tiled floor café. Sun streams through a skylight. A white bench with red, gold and green Jamaica stripes runs two-thirds the way along the space, and there will be small tables. There’s a dozen or so 1950s style chairs like those in Miss Lily’s, with the same stripes. The entire space seats about 20.

The sleek stainless steel juice bar/counter has baskets of fruit: oranges, banana, mango and dragon fruits. There'll be two staff juicing it up as well as making coffee – daily fresh roasts of Dumbo’s Brooklyn Roasting Company. The exclusive house blend is the “Jamaican Blue Mountain Roast."

Melvin said the bakery will serve Jamaican beef patties, sandwiches and salads. It’s not there yet, but there’ll be a bench outside on Sullivan Street you can bet will be heaving with locals and their dogs. (There will be water bowls for pets.) There is no official menu just yet, but they say fresh juices will be $9, patties $4, and a jerk chicken sandwich $9.

The front of Variety is also home to Radio Lily, Miss Lily’s internet radio station. The aim according to partner Serge Becker is to create the ultimate "cultural social club where creatives from all over can come together, hang out, pontificate or simply shoot the breeze."
—Julie Earle-Levine
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[Photo: Melvin Major in his "juice box"]