Simon Haslam
B Smoothie bar is a dedicated smoothie creation hotspot that will very soon be doing its thing on easy street, at number 5 Easy St, to be precise, in The Habitat precinct. Yes, they are moving from Bayshore Dr any day now (red tape permitting – possibly as early as Monday 27 February). In their new location they’ll be serving Big Block coffee (locally roasted by Marvell St Coffee), a range of savoury lunch options, fresh juices and, of course, their well-loved smoothies.
Owners Penny Loughnan and Anthony Baker (the original owners of Combi) are pretty excited to make the move to Habitat, citing the eclectic and diverse range of enterprises, and residents; it’s buzzing with ideas, fashion, health, retail… and a fluid crowd.
B Smoothie Bar is the official outlet for Bare Blends unique nutritional blends of protein powders and other health products. If you’re one of those healthy people who drink protein powder in smoothies you soon become pretty fussy, and this brand is quite a hit with smoothie enjoyers for its texture and non-clumping consistency, whether they’re sampling from the plant-based (vegan) range or the whey-based (WPI) varieties.
Their menu includes quite a number of exotic adaptogens and other ingredients that are available with the smoothies, such as Japanese organic matcha, raw Peruvian maca, ashwagandha and caramelised buckinis. Favourite smoothies include: the Vanilla and Hazelnut Butter smoothie with vanilla bean WPI, almond milk, roasted hazelnut butter, banana and optional coconut oil; as well as the Matcha Mango and Roasted Macadamia with Japanese matcha WPI, coconut milk, roasted macadamia butter, mango – and if you want to double down on the energy, extra matcha is always an option.
There are also some pretty tasty plant-based options; one fav is the Cacao Citrus with organic raw Peruvian cacao, almond milk, lucuma, mandarin oil, orange oil, banana and optional vanilla or cacao protein. Or, of course, you can just have a fresh juice.
For those who are always taking it up a notch, you can easily add a mushroom superfood. I was quite intrigued to see that lucuma, derived from a South American fruit, is high in xanthophylls, which may be good for eye health if you spend a lot of time on the computer, and also may help those with type-2 diabetes, but you don’t have to be a Google Professor Emeritus of exotic additives like myself to enjoy the taste and health benefits of smoothies – ask the staff if you want some suggestions on what to try.
Habitat incubates remote workers on laptops working al fresco, and the perfect drink for them is the ‘Focus’ smoothie; the ‘Post-workout’ smoothie is great after exercise, and the ‘Immune’ smoothie is perfect for anyone wanting a boost.
Because B Smoothie Bar focuses on smoothies, you know you’re getting great products, great options and (with a bit of effort from you too!) great results.
B Smoothie Bar
Shops 1-2, 5 Easy St, Habitat Byron Bay
Insta: bsmoothiebar
FB: BareBlends.ByronBay