Nearly 25-Year-Old NYC Juice Chain Liquiteria Abruptly Closes All Five Locations

One of New York City’s first juice bar chains abruptly closed all of its locations this month. Liquiteria — which opened in the East Village nearly 25 years ago and claims to be NYC’s first cold-pressed juice chain — has closed its five existing locations, with no mentions of the closure on its social media accounts.

Food Hall purveyor Urbanspace confirmed to Eater that Liquiteria had shut both of its food hall locations — one at Vanderbilt Avenue location next to Grand Central Terminal, and the other at 570 Lexington Avenue, in Midtown. The chain also had locations in Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and Union Square, but calls went unanswered, as did an email to a representative at the juice bar chain. Liquiteria’s website is down, its Twitter account hasn’t seen a post since 2017, and its last Instagram post was several months ago. Multiple customers are also talking about the juice bar’s closing on Twitter.

The first signs of trouble can be traced back to the 2018 closing of the original location at East 11th Street and Second Avenue. At that time, Liquiteria was operating six different locations and did not reveal any plans for a full shutdown anytime in the near future.

But massive competition in the juice market may have played a role.

Doug Green opened Liquiteria in 1996, and stars like Natalie Portman and Rachel Weisz frequented the original location. It wasn’t until the cold-pressed juice craze hit NYC in the early 2010s that Liquiteria pushed for a massive expansion. By 2013, Green had sold the business to a group of investors, and new ownership continued to open new locations over the next few years.

Juice bars are dime a dozen in the city; now, many corner bodegas even sell fresh juice. Eater has reached out for comment and will update this post accordingly.