A conversation with Hello Juice’s Jon Maness

Jon Maness jokes that he is perhaps the last person you’d expect to be an ambassador of healthful eating. He thought so himself, which is why he had a less-than-enthused reaction when his wife, Jen, first approached him with the idea to get involved with their initial venture, Hello Juice.

I was like, “What the f—k do we know about juice?” Maness recalls with a laugh. “Probably every two or three months, I run into someone at the store who I went to high school with, and they say that they heard this is what I’m doing, and they had to come see it to believe it. It’s that far off from where I was headed. They all say it’s great and awesome but ask how the hell I ended up here. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you if I tried.”

A self-described meat-eating, beer-drinking construction worker, Maness was forced to rethink his ways over a decade ago, when he became critically ill and was diagnosed with liver failure and a week to live. He didn’t have a choice but to change, so he got sober and recalibrated his relationship with food; now, he sees a major part of his work with Hello Juice and the newly launched meal kit company Hello Eats as helping people from all walks of life embrace a healthier lifestyle. Maness recently shared his thoughts on how he got to this point in his life and why he hopes that his story inspires others.

You are adamant that you are one of the last people on Earth who should be running a juice business and healthy meal kit company. Why is that? My dad is this kind of man’s man, and I grew up eating meat and potatoes, doing construction, drinking beer, and all that. That’s the person I was when I was living in the mountains, too, but when I came back, I changed who I was and met Jen. Both of us are pretty impulsive; she was looking for her next thing, and Hello Juice had just opened and needed help. I was like, “What the f—k do we know about juice?” But we got involved. All of this stuff was new to me, but it changed my life. I’ve lost probably 40 pounds and went from somebody sitting on the porch smoking cigarettes to someone who tries to run four days a week and do CrossFit five. It is wonderful, and I am super glad that this is where I ended up, but it is as far from what I expected as you can get.

You and Jen have been involved with Hello Juice since a little after its founding in 2018. How did you decide to add Hello Eats to the mix? Honestly, Jen has had to work a full-time job to pay our bills, and I’m working 70 or 80 hours a week to make Hello Juice go. When we get home, we look at each other and think, Are we really going to eat frozen pizza again? But the thought of doing another dish or even getting near a piece of food after a long day at work is not what we wanted to do. We wanted to have access to healthy food—that is our whole thing. We thought that it doesn’t have to be hard. 

You joke that you and your team sometimes get the same funny question from people who come into Hello Juice. How did that factor into your thinking with Hello Eats? We’ll sometimes have these people, mostly men, who come in and ask, “Do you have any real food?” We’re like, “All of this stuff is actual food,” but Hello Eats is kind of an answer to that. When I get off work, make it to the gym if I have time, and get home, I have maybe an hour to connect with my partner. Are we going to spend that time cooking and doing dishes? Plus, what do I want to eat? Not more fruits and vegetables. I want a protein-filled meal that I can feel good about after I eat it. We started talking about how this is hard for everyone and that there are some meal-prep companies out there but not really a local one. We figured, Why not take all this work off everyone else’s plate? These meals are macro balanced, delicious, good for you, filling, and actually have salt and spice and heat. But the biggest thing is it’s a gift of time: You can grab them from the refrigerator at our store during normal business hours or have them delivered to your home on Sundays. Then, when you’re ready to eat them, you can walk in the door and heat up two healthy, delicious meals and not have to worry about whether we have time to connect and spend time together. 

You’re doing a special collaboration with a local professional athlete. How did that come about? Jake Nerwinski, a defensive player with CITY SC has been coming in to Hello Juice since he first came to town. Jen [reached out to him] and we worked together on a juice and smoothie bowl at Hello Juice and a fajita bowl for Hello Eats. We started out with some of the rough nutritional guidelines for professional soccer players and went from there. 

You note that running a business is hard, but clearly you love what you’re doing. What keeps you going? It’s really a combination of a lot of things, but what really got me into it is the staff. I love problem-solving and all that comes with owning a small business, for sure, but honestly my favorite part of this is the staff. We end up with a lot of college students, and they are just excited and haven’t been beaten down by the world yet. I’ve spent a lot of time working with old construction workers, loggers, bartenders, and people throwing shot glasses at my head, but you come in and they are just great. They’re not world-weary, even though a lot of them are getting dealt a bad hand, but they are still optimistic about being able to change the future.