Smoothie Factory—Doha’s new go-to healthy juice bar

Tucked away by Centerpoint Mall in Al Sadd, Doha, the newly opened Smoothie Factory is a quirky juice joint just a few steps away from a branch of the (notorious) Marmara Istanbul.

Smoothie Factory is an American juice bar chain founded by Olympic athlete James Villasana in 1996. One of the reasons he started the unique juice chain was to provide healthy but tasty food options, made with only the highest quality ingredients.

Thanks to Villasana’s conscientiousness, Smoothie Factory’s juices and smoothies are freshly-made with real fruit, without syrups or bottled flavourings, and most of them are gluten-free.

Now some of you may be wondering just how good a juice made of kale and other green crunchy food can be. Some of our team members went in with similar sentiments, but were pleasantly surprised. The menu is not only varied enough to include frozen yoghurt, porridge and red-velvet pancakes, but the actual healthy options all come with a twist that keeps you interested.

We tried…

Although we did admittedly splurge on a lot of chocolate-flavored yoghurt, we were lucky enough to try the Green Detox, Turmeric Sunrise and Skin Zen, and come away happy with our choices.

Not only do these juices look beautiful, they taste like something you would actually want to pour over ice and drink on a hot summer’s day—or on any day really, winter is coming after all. The Turmeric Sunrise, with its orange, carrot and turmeric combination, was especially interesting to both the eyes and the tastebuds.

We also got to try the Very Berry smoothie, partly because the colour appealed to us, but also because we were told it’s a Smoothie Factory special. The fact that the smoothie gets its rich color from actual fruit and not syrup and artificial food colouring is probably why it tasted so good, or so we reasoned—sugar can be overrated.

The Peanut Butter Powerhouse smoothie was another favourite of ours, with honey giving it a sweet edge, and a good 27g of Turbinado Protein for strength.

The mouthwatering red velvet pancakes and blueberry crepes vanished in a matter of moments, but what we really took time to enjoy was the strawberry waffle. If you’ve tried enough waffles in your life, you may notice that some restaurants fall short when it comes to texture, and they sometimes wind up with a defrosted sort of hardness.

Smoothie Factory’s waffle was just the right amount of soft without actually being fluffy, and if you’re a waffle fan, we’re sure you understand where we’re coming from when we say that.

The health benefits

One of the best things about this little place is its ability to cater to both full-blown health freaks and people that are simply thirsty, hungry or curious to try something that—surprise, surprise—may actually turnout being good for them.

The smoothies and juices are divided and rated by their benefits. For example, ‘Detox’, Cleanse’, ‘Boost’ and ‘Glow’ are some juice categories to choose from, and you have the option of adding ‘nutritional boosts’ to your beverages. Multivitamins, protein and glutamine are just some of the available options.

Juicing diets has been something of a trend over the past few years, and if you’re interested in trying the cleanse out, Smoothie Factory will be releasing its own special package over the next few months to those of you interested in having the juices bottled and delivered fresh to your doorstep.

The pricing

One of the first perks we noticed about Smoothie Factory was how reasonable prices were for both the beverages and the breakfast foods.

The juice bar offers three size options for juices and smoothies—350 ml, 475 ml and 600 ml— ranging from 14 QAR to 20 QAR, and are made on the spot.

You can get a generous bowl of oatmeal for as low as 15 QAR. The waffles and pancakes are a little pricier, at 25 QAR, but the servings are generous and the food itself delicious, so there isn’t much cause to complain.

All in all, with something for everyone, we highly recommend this little place!