Squeeze Juice Works owner eyes new wellness business

Squeeze Juice Works, a health-focused beverage business that once operated multiple locations in the Tampa Bay area, has closed its final storefront in St. Petersburg. Owner Kelly Lessem, who founded the company in 2012, is now pivoting to a new venture: A wellness co-working space.

Soul Purpose is set to open soon at 675 30th Ave. N. in St. Petersburg. The location was home to the last standing Squeeze Juice Works location; it closed Jan. 20.

Squeeze began as a response to Lessem’s challenges in being diagnosed with, and trying to find treatment for, an autoimmune condition. Seeking supplemental care alongside Western medicine, Lessem started making juices in her kitchen.

The last Squeeze Juice Works location at 675 30th Ave. N. closed Jan. 20. Owner Kelly Lessem is now transforming the location into a wellness coworking space.

In 2013, Squeeze opened its first brick-and-mortar location with a mission to provide the Tampa Bay area with clean, fresh, whole-pressed juices. Over time, the juice bar expanded its menu to include a variety of juices, coffee, food and smoothies meant to benefit health and well-being.

At its peak, Squeeze Juice Works operated three locations in Tampa and St. Pete. The company also sold plant-based products at a cafe in St. Pete’s Round Lake neighborhood, also owned by Lessem. However, the rapid growth presented challenges. 

“We just saw opportunity, and we never really kind of wrote out a business plan for how the business was going to develop,” Lessem said, noting that her health also declined as the business expanded. “We had a very strong culture and we were lucky to have really good people, but we really didn’t have structures built to manage the people in a way that benefited us.

“In the beginning, I was in a partnership and then we separated that partnership in 2018. Running it by yourself, I can say, for any business owner, is incredibly lonely. It became evident that I needed to downsize.”

The Tampa location closed in 2019, followed by the Central Ave. location in St. Pete in 2024. Other factors, including the pandemic and increasing rents, further complicated operations.

“After the three hurricanes this past year, it became really evident that that was not a good direction for me anymore,” Lessem explained. “I decided to close Squeeze, liquidate it and just try to move forward towards what I really want to do with my life.”

She wants to create a supportive environment for both practitioners and clients, a “wellness guild,” at Soul Purpose. 

“I really missed that part of my life, and I wanted to get back to that, to use everything that I had learned in the past 13 years of Squeeze and to bring that back to help support people that are going through chronic illness, and to support the community,” Lessem said.

“I felt like what this gave me was almost an MBA [Masters in Business Administration] in real-time with real money,” Lessem said with a laugh. “So I feel like the education that I received, both in learning about how to work with people with their health and also my own health and how to run a business, has brought me back to a simpler way of using my energies towards working with supporting people with chronic illness.”

Soul Purpose will offer treatment rooms for rent by the hour or month, providing independent practitioners a place to offer their services without the management structure of a traditional spa. In addition to providing space for wellness professionals, Lessem plans to use her experience to support individuals dealing with health complications.

“At one point, I wrote a list of how many different like people I had gone to see, and it had over 114. Everything from Western Doctors, neurologists and rheumatologists to naturopathy, functional medicine and acupuncture,” Lessem said. “When you get sick, you are just searching for someone to help. I want to create this place to help guide people because chronic illness is really lonely.” 

She envisions Soul Purpose as a community space, hosting workshops and offering a platform for local wellness experts to share their knowledge. Lessem also plans to host a weekly segment interviewing local therapists, highlighting their unique skills and how to connect with them.

Soul Purpose is set to open in March, and Lessem is currently seeking practitioners to join the guild.

“The right people are coming,” she said. “It’s going to be pretty amazing.”

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