Fresh Juice reviews · Nekter Juice Bar - San Diego

Quick and smooth. They have bowls, smoothies and juices. Cool little spot.

Beet and carrot juice is phenomenal!

Great location for a juice bar.

Both my partner and I have tried a great many smoothies and acai bowls respectively, and the downtown area is really falling short of fresh acai bowls and healthy smoothies. Aesthetically this place is very pleasing to the eyes, though the space would habe been far better utilized as a restaurant in place of a juice bar. The patio and indoor seating area are both large but, again - wasted space. Initially I was torn between getting a pre-made bottled protein drink and a freshly made smoothie with protein, I decided upon the latter. Truthfully, I don't think either decision was the "right" choice. The bottled "protein" drink had 10g of protein in the entire bottle vs the 30+ grams of sugar - how this is considered a protein drink is beyond me. At this rate id rather drink a glass of milk - which is at least naturally occurring sugar. The smoothie: I ordered a mango smoothie with added whey protein. I'm pretty familiar with high protein drinks (although, according to the cashier their protein is measured in tablespoons with a whopping 4g each - have not confirmed) regardless, with the amount of protein added this drink was almost inedible. The drink tasted purely of chalk. The ratio I'd imagine was something like: four chalk sticks to one mango. I'd like to believe it would have tasted better without the protein, but this begs the question: what kind of whey protein are they using, or is it even protein at all? I've had really good and really bad protein, most times the bad protein doesn't taste chalky it just tastes, well, bad. This protein was in a completely different bracket. Alright, so the smoothie wasn't the best, but surely the acai bowl was good, right? Wrong. The acai was vibrant, almost a fluorescent purple which was slightly alarming, as most healthier (and consequently better) acai bowls have been a much deeper hue of purple. The acai itself was very underwhelming. It had a taste as though it was watered down and very flavorless. The granola was sugary and had what I like to call "filler rice". Apparently investing in a good hearty granola was out of the budget for this colossal downtown location. It's essentially half sugary granola with added rice crispy's to cut costs. Lastly, the fruit was just ok. Wasn't bad, just didn't taste nearly as fresh as some of the better acai bowls we've had. Overall a dissapointing experience. I think we'll be stepping away from downtown for a decent smoothie and bowl. It's convenient location and appeasing aesthetic is all this juice bar really has to offer.

Lol, it can get pretty loud in there. Those Juicer machines need to be in the back or something, it sounds like a tree chipper! But the smoothie I had was delicious. It was worth the wait. The bowl my wife had also was very tasty!