Throwback Thursday

Business Feature: Juice Nation

Taylor Richard is a key member of the family-owned business.

Not only is Juice Nation locally-owned, it’s a family-owned. And they make it their business to make every customer feel like family. Employees are rewarded for memorizing customer’s names and order preferences with contests and incentives.

This may be one of the reasons that Juice Nation has been successful. So successful that Owner Tameko Richard has never had to turn to paid advertising, but she does use social media. Juice Nation has a strong presence on social media with 1,187 followers on their Twitter and 768 likes on their Facebook. “I just try to make sure we have a presence and put information out there that people care about,” said Tameko. She tweets a healthy tip of the day, their weekly/biweekly frozen yogurt flavor, relevant articles, and daily specials or promotions. The store is also on Four Square, as Tameko reported surprise and confusion when a customer came in boasting, “I’m the manager of this place!”

Juice Nation’s products are made with no sugar, no syrup, whole fruit, and organic wheat grass (“I can’t keep wheat grass in the store,” laughed Tameko). The store also sells organic steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast, which Tameko raved about. They also sponsor a reboot program where customers consume only raw juices, fruit, or vegetables for either one, three, five, or seven days. Tameko said that one customer lost 80 pounds from doing two of the 60 day cycles.

Juice Nation participates in many community events from: golf outings, health fairs, Blue Cross events, even business openings. When they close down around the holidays, nothings is wasted– everything is donated instead. “We definitely like to do our fair share of things and like to give back to the community,” said Tameko.

Stop in soon to 111 Washing Square South in Lansing and try something new!

Throwback Thursday

Upcoming Events in #LoveLansing

Lansing Boat Show

January 18-20

Hurry up to visit the Lansing Boat Show “H20-13″ at the Lansing Center packing the Main Exhibition Halls. 36 different manufacturers will be represented so the selection is limitless.

Keep Michigan’s Wolves Protected

January 22

Come to the Keep Michigan Wolves Protected Campaign Kickoff to find out how you can get involved in this important referendum to help protect Michigan’s still-recovering wolf population.

Mid-Michigan Women’s Expo

February 1-3

The Lansing Women’s Expo is the original and first of Women’s Expos. The Mid-Michigan Women’s Expo is celebrating 13 years and recognized as the best.

Frost Fest 2013

February 16

Civil Twilight, Flint Eastwood and Lights and Caves will be performing! Tickets are available here for $15.

Taste & Tour of Old Town

April 13

Old Town Commercial Association is hosting its fifth annual Taste & Tour of Old Town, a progressive food sampler and exclusive loft tour. The sampler gives visitors a chance to taste a variety of Old Town’s finest fare.

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday

Twit Pics from the Capitol

Lansing is in the national spotlight lately with the right-to-work legislation debate. This morning the State Police estimated that the current crowd on the Capitol lawn is more than 10,000 protestors strong and growing rapidly. Activity on Twitter is equally alive; #savemi, #righttowork, “Capitol” and “Michigan” have been or still are current trending topics so far today. With the protests comes the media frenzy– helicopters are circling overhead, reporters are tweeting, and photographers are going to extremes to get the perfect shot. We’ve been following the #righttowork movement on Twitter and want to share a couple of our favorite Twit Pics thus far.

Taken by @jameeurrea who tweeted, “Many thanks to the guy on the Capitol steps who put me on his shoulders to get this shot. #righttowork pic.twitter.com/kkFAJ8DK”

Snapped yesterday by @MelissaDAnders who tweeted, “60+ state police vehicles near Capitol for #righttowork protests pic.twitter.com/ZoO7qWH9″

Photo by @weezwrites who tweeted, “Doug Barnes of St. Johns has a message for @onetoughnerd #righttowork pic.twitter.com/juc8yn5QP”

Shot by @Anne_Savage who tweeted, “Gotta give these folks props they are rockin’ the house #savemi #righttowork http://lockerz.com/s/268148287″

Throwback Thursday

Starting this week, we’ll be featuring an old photograph from the Lansing State Journal every Thursday.

Meet Elise Kaufmann, Our New Social Media Intern

     As one of the new interns, I will be posting regularly to the blog and other social media sites.

This fall I’m starting my senior year at Michigan State University, majoring in Communication with a specialization in Public Relations. I was born and raised in Traverse City, which is the greatest place in the world. I love photography, burritos, and MSU basketball.

My plan for this semester is to focus in on the Lansing area and shine some light on locals and their businesses, projects, and events. I hope to introduce many local business owners and show how things work behind the scenes.

Lansing Among America’s Brainiest Cities

Lansing holds slot 16 on America’s brainiest cities list. Atlantic magazine compiled the list, which measured cognitive capacity of these metro cities. Lumosity, a software, uses games to challenge and improve users’ cognitive abilities. The games also allow users to select which area of the brain they want to work on. Lumosity scientists gathered data from more than one million users for their study.

Here is the full list of brainy cities:

1. Charlottesville, Virginia
2. Lafayette, Indiana
3. Anchorage Alaska
4. Madison, Wisconsin
5. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
6. Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, Iowa
7. Honolulu
8. Johnstown-Altoona, Pennsylvania
9. Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, Illinois
10. Minneapolis-St. Paul
11. Boston-Manchester (Massachusetts/New Hampshire)
12. Austin
13. Rochester, New York
14. Gainesville, Florida
15. Fargo-Valley City North Dakota
16. Lansing, Michigan
17. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo
18. Burlington-Plattsburgh (Vermont/New York)
19. Pittsburgh
20. Syracuse, New York
21. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
22. Columbia-Jefferson City, Missouri
23. La Crosse-Eau Claire, Wisconsin
24. Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York Pennsylvania
25. Springfield-Holyoke, Massachusetts

Congratulations, Lansing. As if we needed another reason to love you.

Find the original article here: America’s Brainiest Cities by Richard Florida