Newkirk Plaza Juice Bar Off To A Rocky Start

Before it even opened, we set the bar pretty low for Bally's, the new juice bar/sandwich shop that opened in Newkirk Plaza last week. We knew the outdoor seating section, tucked into a corner overlooking the B and Q tracks, would not be glamorous. We were totally cool with that. We took a look at the menu and saw that all the smoothies were $6. For a little 16 ounce cup! Can't you get better deals than that at Jamba Juice? In Manhattan? I thought this was Brooklyn. Stuff's supposed to be cheaper, right? But that's alright. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we'd just have to pay a little extra for the convenience of getting a smoothie so close to home. Fine. Then we checked out the food part of the menu and were a little bummed to find that this "healthy food" place didn't have any vegan sandwiches or wraps. Oh, well. No big deal. After all, they offered 3 different veggie burgers!

So when they finally opened, we stopped by and gave them a shot.

The peanut butter and jelly smoothie (peanut butter, jelly, banana) just tasted like a peanut butter and banana smoothie. Very bland. The triple berry smoothie wasn't too special either. We decided to give them a few days to sort out any kinks so we checked back in at the end of the week. This time, all I wanted was the "Hypertension" juice. No can do, they said. Out of carrots. Okay, how about the unfortunately named "Colon Cleanse" juice? Nope. Out of spinach too. They asked me if I wanted a replacement vegetable, so I chose the only one they had- celery. Celery, granny smith apple, and peeled lemon. It wasn't bad, either, but it ended up having a dark red color. They explained that a previous smoothie had beets in it, so that's why my smoothie was red. Cool with me, I just hope people with food allergies ask for a list of every smoothie that was made that day.

And then there's the whole veggie burger thing. We were kind of hoping for some sort of homemade burger with vegetables and sprouts and grains and whatnot. It could even be a vegetable based burger ordered from a distributor, that way we could at least feel like we were getting something special that we couldn't just pick up at the corner store. But whatever, we're easy to please. Any vegan burger would do. And for a place that has three different types of veggie burgers, you would think one of those would be vegan. Unfortunately, all of their veggie burgers have dairy ingredients in them. The "Quorn burger" has egg whites in it. The "veggie burger" is a Morningstar product that has milk and egg ingredients, and the "Boca burger" is actually a Boca cheeseburger, which comes pre-injected with cheese and all sorts of other dairy ingredients. And the burgers were those teeny little 8 oz. patties that you can get anywhere. At least take a weekly trip to Costco and get the big vegan Boca patties that a lot of restaurants serve. Make me think I'm getting something I can't get around the corner.

We wanted to like this place. We really did. And we haven't completely written them off. If they put a single vegan food item on their menu we'll be the first ones back in line. But right now they just ain't cuttin' it.