Keeping things fresh with local partnerships and new ideas

Fifteen years after opening its doors in Camana Bay, Jessie’s Juice Bar is still finding new ways to keep things fresh — literally.

What began as a small café focused on healthy food and community connection has grown into a hub for locally sourced produce, sustainability and creativity. Today, Jessie’s is expanding its partnership with local farmer Clarence McLaughlin and launching a new mobile coffee and juice cart, while continuing to serve as a daily meeting place for residents and visitors alike.

“We met Farmer Clarence when we opened Jessie’s almost 15 years ago,” said co-owner Lachie Hewitt. “Jessie is from a farming background — she grew up on a farm in New Zealand — and she got on amazingly with Clarence. Having something grown fresh and locally produced was just an opportunity that we had to take to ensure that Jessie’s had this high-quality product.”

Hewitt said Clarence’s produce has been part of Jessie’s from the beginning, from sorrel in the café’s kombucha to local tomatoes, coconuts and eggs.

“Clarence has been an amazing partner for Jessie’s over the years and just an amazing friend as well,” he said. “It’s just nice to have something grown locally and used locally, and seasonally all the time. It’s how it should be.”

That commitment to freshness and community continues with Jessie’s latest concept — a mobile coffee and juice cart that brings the café’s signature drinks to new locations.

“We saw an opportunity … to help out with this problem by having these independent carts that can provide essentially a pop-up Jessie’s at the click of a finger,” Hewitt said. The carts will serve coffee made with Panther Coffee beans, juices and specialty drinks, such as the “Coffee Cloud,” a mix of local coconut water and cold-brew espresso.

Since opening in 2010, Jessie’s has evolved alongside Camana Bay and Cayman’s growing wellness scene.

“There have been a lot more challenges since we opened, but the core values and the things that kind of made Jessie’s really special early on [are] still there,” Hewitt said. “We’re trying to expand on the growing, … rosemary or basil or star fruit or spinach tree — little things that we use.”

For Hewitt, Jessie’s has always been more than a business.

“It really doesn’t feel like a job,” he said. “You enjoy it, and when you see other people enjoying it, it just makes it all feel worthwhile. We hope to take Jessie’s on to the next 15 years and make it a real legacy — a space that has meaning and community, because people honestly really need it.”