Belli's

This weekend marks one full year since Belli’s first opened its doors!

Clemente High School students pay a visit

Belli’s gave high school students a taste of local food, community gardening, and our healthy green juices plus Belli Blaster juices in new sizes! We showed them how we make our juices with no sugar or preservatives and where our food comes from. Every sample disappeared before we could even photograph the full lineup: teen-approved!

Next Stop: Whittier Elementary Health Fair

We had a wonderful time with volunteers sharing more healthy juice at a nearby elementary school health fair. We asked Pilsen youth about traditional juice ingredients and compared them with our own. Any kid who could spot the difference earned a free juice!

And Belli’s is now officially ‘compostable’

The Illinois Food Scrap Coalition welcomed Belli’s into the WE COMPOST program in recognition of the healthy, sustainable, green practices we follow at the juice bar!

A lot can happen in one week.

You can be part of this and back our healthy initiatives.

Swing by for a juice! It’s that easy. Or take it a step further,

Commit to a membership

https://squareup.com/market/bellis/membership

*Memberships come with 10% discounts, reduced-price art classes, and special invitations to events this summer at Belli’s!

This weekend we will be celebrating 6 months at Belli’s. It’s hard to believe this project has made it through six months, and that at 26, I’ve only gained a couple white hairs and a few pounds from the stress of opening up a business. In any case, Belli’s is still around and growing because so many people have supported and became involved in this project.

And as I look back on the past six months, those two elements—people and project—are what keep Belli’s moving forward, and keep me going too.

The many people who have helped Belli’s and become part of this project…

Isabelle, Zoe, and Nivine, who all pitched in on the hanging crate design in the window display, the painting, and the overall layout—and who aren’t shy about telling me my pick of guacamole green was a mistake.

Artist Art Olson, who crafted signs for the store and climbs railings and ceilings to help with the monthly window messages, from “Be Happy Be Healthy” to “Start Fresh” to “Grow Your Own Food”

And these Whitney Young high school students, who recently installed a garden for a school project that has drawn plenty of passersby…

This guy for lending a hand, and for being Belli’s No. 1 (our very first) employee.

Our wonderful crepe friend Efrain, who helps Belli’s with anything and everything, from picking up supplies to making delicious crepes.

Our recent installation with Nathan from Arize, who set the whole thing up for us!

Artist Tatiana Garcia, for helping with 2nd Fridays and for bringing future artists to Belli’s!

Cole from Cole Mestrovich Designs, who created this for Belli’s!

And all the volunteers who helped build our crates from reclaimed wood donated by RedMoon!

This guy from Urban Canopy, Eric, who helped set up the aeroponics system donated by another generous soul, Danny, who grows hemp in Spain!

And we can’t forget Evo from Yvolina’s Tamales, who has helped out at the juice bar many times!

And our favorite day at Belli’s, Sunday… not only because of the weekend, but because of Mariel, who gives her time to lead yoga sessions at Belli’s.

That doesn’t even count the many community businesses that support Belli’s, including our neighbors Dusek’s, who used our apple cider in their winter punch, our neighbors at Modern Cooperative, who stop by often for juice and other vegan snacks, and the rest of the local community backing this project. So many good deeds have happened here, and we hope it keeps going, because it proves that when enough people come together, we can accomplish great things and reshape how business supports our community.

And as I reflect on those past six months and the many events we’ve hosted in our space—from underground dinners to workshops on raising chickens to nonprofits like Las Caras Lindas, who empower women and youth leaders—I also think about how Belli’s isn’t just a business: it really is a project.

This project isn’t about making money and taking vacations on sandy beaches. It’s about bringing a community together around good food, supporting our local community and farmers, and raising awareness of and access to healthy options and local, fresh foods. The business of Belli’s—selling juice—sustains the bigger project, so stop in soon for a juice and celebrate six months this weekend, April 26-27th, with our first tapped keg of kombucha!

Ever since Belli’s opened six months ago (in October 2013), the question I hear most is: “What’s your favorite juice?” Honestly, I have to say: “All of them!” (I did create the menu!)

The second-most common question is: “What made you want to open a place like this? Was it always your dream?”

My answer shifts depending on the day and the moment.

People are often surprised when I say it was never really a “dream.” (I dream about traveling, hiking in the mountains, discussing philosophy over a glass of wine on the beach, and breakfast.) I never dreamed of owning a business, though I had thought about it before.

I’ve often asked myself, “How can I make the greatest positive impact on society—beyond my own personal habits?” I’ve always been politically engaged, but at some point I came to believe that a different way of fighting growing apathy and ignorance around food and social empowerment wasn’t just possible, but necessary.

I wanted to make a difference. In 2013 I was in graduate school for Urban Planning and reluctant to continue into a second year, since the program left me unsatisfied. I no longer felt like I was learning, so I was determined to drop out. I had a part-time job at Trader Joe’s and didn’t want to think further ahead about my future, because I was content with life there.

Then one day, while harvesting at a community garden, I ran into two friends, Sallie and Siobhan. We talked about my frustration with graduate school and the education system, and afterward I realized I felt like a hypocrite in that setting—reading without acting. I didn’t want to research anymore. I didn’t want to read anymore. I wanted to do. So I did.

So here I am, a 26-year-old business owner, sometimes feeling lost, confused, and at times frozen in time as I work through my endless to-do list. But when I look around the store—at the shelves of fresh local produce, at the wide range of people from Pilsen and across Chicago excited to try new mixes from the Juice Bar and join our community events—I’m grateful for that list.

Being able to provide opportunities to those who might not otherwise have them, being able to increase awareness of the injustices in our current food system, and being able to invest in a community by offering healthy alternatives wasn’t a dream—it was a desire for a movement that I feel lucky to be a part of, and I welcome others to take part too.

—Alex

Remember the day you first learned to push off on your bike? Probably with a parent close by? That feeling of freedom, accomplishment, and possibility—it stays with you.

At Belli’s we feel that same thrill when we grow our own gardens and help others learn to grow theirs. Just as some people build and ride bikes to support sustainable transportation, gardeners push for a sustainable—and fresh, healthy—food system. Both are fueled by a DIY spirit: both ask, why not do this ourselves and simplify a little? From starting seeds (we just held a great workshop on it) to harvesting to sharing a meal with friends, growing your own food brings enormous rewards.

Want a few tips? Start early: lettuces, spinach, peas, and carrots tolerate early spring temperatures and are ideal for April planting. Start small: in city gardens where space is tight, begin with smaller vegetables.

Plenty of resources are available, including the Chicago Botanic Garden, where we found these tips, and of course Belli’s, where we’re dedicated to inspiring you about local food: come in and taste what other locals are growing.

Life keeps handing us challenges: growing your own food garden is one of the easier ones to take on, and an increasingly important one as we build toward a healthy future. Whether we’re kids or adults, sometimes we all need a reminder: you can do it yourself, you can do it sustainably. We all can.