A lot of people have been wondering what the deal is and why the Daily Juice on Barton Springs and Lake Austin Blvd turned into Juiceland.From what I understand, two guys opened the original Daily Juice pictured above on Barton Springs, Matt Shook and Keith Wahrer. Keith wanted to franchise into even more locations and Matt didn’t so Matt retained ownership of the first two locations and changed the name to Juiceland while Keith kept the Daily Juice Cafe in Hyde Park and plans to open more all over town.

I think the split has actually been a great thing. I was already obsessed with the Matt Shook / soup peddler run Juicebox. I do love smoothies and the green smoothies at the Juicebox are the best I had had, I even put the green monster on my 2011 top ten. Since the Juicebox is close to home it took a twitter deal for half off to finally bring me to Juiceland and now I have returned several times. Their old menu wasn’t very inspiring to me, regular fruit smoothies are something I usually just want to make at home. But the new menu is so much more delightful! Both the smoothies and the juices are divivded into sections like fruit, green, protein and dessert. This is really nice and helpful, their line up of green smoothies is super exciting and I don’t remember them even having any before. I just tried the Tikal the other day and at Lake Austin location and it had pineapple, papaya, ormus supergreens, and lime. It was so tropical and delicious!

Even more appealing is the “next level” and “even further” sections of the menu. This is where you will find smoothies like “Kaleibrator” which is coconut water, banana, durian, kale, spirulina, pecan butter, hemp seeds, coconut oil . Can you believe it!?! You can totally become a level 5 vegan just by trying it. It is the same deal with the juices, you could try the “Ninja Bachelor Party” pineapple, jalapeno, celery, kale, spinach, parsley, salt.

Plus, they have ready-made takeaway which, I think, have gotten so much better than the all raw creations of the past. I have really been enjoying the soba noodle, kale & edamame bowl. It is surprisingly tasty and really filling.

They also have a ton of vegan food stuffs like power bars, energy bars, fruit bars, kale chips, and even homemade soup from the Soup Peddler. If you are looking to go on a juice diet you can buy their special blends by the gallon and not just the Master Cleanse, but their own signature blends like Unicorn Blood which has Watermelon, Beet, Celery, and Ginger or the Tri Pinnacle which has Coconut Water, Avocado, Spinach, and Kale. How the hell do you juice an avocado anyway? I don’t know but Juiceland has found away.

On the other hand, the Daily Juice has kind of gone in the opposite direction, they stopped being all raw and added items like vegan nachos and the Sweet Ritual vegan ice cream shop opened up inside. Unfortunately, they also added dairy cheese so make sure to specify when you go.

So that’s the story. Don’t worry about going to Juiceland, it’s still mostly run and filled with hippies and the super active people that populate such establishments so I promise it will be completely non-threatening, non-corporate and satisfying.