Juice Swell Pops Up on Seaward

Something was missing in the Pierpont business area of Seaward Avenue, but Keith Repult couldn’t quite figure out what. He didn’t want to compete with the existing restaurants. Repult, who already owns Surf N Yogurt, had bought the building next door with the idea of turning the old, decrepit property into a place that would enrich the neighborhood. After renovating the property, there was a great spot for something new. But what?

As with all important decisions, the answer came from his daughter—Sahvon Repult, 29.

“[My daughter’s] an Ojai hippie. She likes growing her own food and eating organic,” Repult says. “I always liked juices. We were looking for a demand that wasn’t met. We thought [a juice bar] would be perfect.” Repult’s architect thought of the name—Juice Swell, to reflect the seaside location of the new shop. “Like ocean swells or the 1930s-style use ‘swell,’” he says.

For the chef, “I had met James Quandt on a boat trip. With that, all the pieces came together. But I still wasn’t sure. I had rented the other half of the building to the lady who owns the Rowan Boutique. She told me, ‘I don’t want to rent here if [you] don’t open a juice store.’ It was all a perfect match.”

“Keith and I met on a fishing boat,” says Chef Quandt. “After he saw some Facebook posts of mine about making juice and experimenting with recipes, he asked me if I wanted to be a part of Juice Swell, and six short months later we opened. I have a culinary background and have been cooking professionally as a private chef for five years, while only recently diving headfirst into a healthy ‘food is medicine’ style of cooking.”

Repult wanted Juice Swell be more than just another juice bar. He wanted to have the shop feature healthy, organic, locally sourced foods.

“We do acai bowls, avocado toast with eggs, watermelon pizza or longboard sweet potatoes topped with hummus, cilantro, roasted red pepper, feta cheese and an egg. We have grab-and-go salads, grab-and-go wraps and different soups each week. I eat there every morning because of it,” says Repult, who has lost 15 pounds since the shop opened last fall. “It seems the neighborhood really appreciated it. We get a lot of ‘we needed this.’”

Making healthy dishes requires healthy ingredients, and the less time from harvest to table (and bottle) is a very important part of that equation. Chef Quandt says Juice Swell is focused on making sure food comes from local farmers and businesses.

“We strive to shop local and organic as much as possible as well as provide the freshest ingredients available,” he says.

“Ventura is an evolving community that is coming to realize that food truly is medicine. We hope to relay some knowledge of what certain ingredients can do for the body,” says Quandt, adding that Juice Swell not only is committed to healthy food, but to treating employees well. “We believe a happy employee is a happy customer. We are taking care of our staff as much as we do our clients.”

Repult says he enjoys starting new small businesses that not only enrich him, but also the community. In addition to Surf N Yogurt, a must-visit stop on every visitor’s list, he has opened a small cabinet store, Native Oak, which provided the cabinetry for the renovations at Juice Swell.