Hula Juice Bar and Gallery

Dear EH,

I am the owner of Hula and I wanted to address your complaint and let you know how sorry I am that we didn't make you a fantastic juice. Thank you for voicing it, I take full responsibility and hope to be able to make it up to you.

Firstly I'm glad that you found some things to like both about Hula the place itself and the friendly staff. But you didn't get what you ordered and I am sorry about that. We do juice some OJ and apple juice which is used for lengthening smoothies in busy times in advance, although not too long in advance, we are continually juicing. It is added to the fresh and frozen fruits, yogurt etc to make the smoothie. However our straight up juices are served fresh from the machine (via a small jug that's been filled from the machine.)

You should have received it from the OJ machine, that is what it is sitting there in all its glory for and it's much nicer and better for you that way, I know, I founded a juice bar to make fresh juice..

My staff have excellent customer service skills and lovely personalities, that's why they work here. Everyone is learning all the time and it is my job to make sure they are fully trained, something has gone wrong in this case and that's my responsibility. Our very next training session will re-address juice preparation, all we can do is learn from this and try to get better.

Our website - again, sorry. I have a very old website (the one you accessed) which has only this week been removed and a holding page put up while our new site is developed. One of the failings of the old site was that it had a phone number but no email address to contact us...

I would like to refund your purchase, and also to offer you and a friend a voucher to dine at Hula so that we can try and make up for this and give you another perspective. If you would like to.

Please get in touch with me again via the details on www.hulajuicebar.co.uk. All we can do is learn and improve.

I just went in this morning to get a freshly squeezed orange juice, I think I might be getting a cold so I thought it would be a great way to start the day...

But, I couldn't be bothered doing it myself! So I bought a take away juice from Hula... Unfortunately, the lovely girl that helped me couldn't be bothered either: the service was very friendly but the "freshly squeezed OJ" was poured from a jug that was sitting in the counter. -fair enough- I though, they probabily squeeze it in batches because it goes quite quickly...

Much to my dissapointment, the OJ was cold from the fridge and it tasted like it had most likely been left in there overninght. Considering orange juice will lose nearly all of its vitamin C if left out for just one hour, I don't feel the fresh OJ I paid for was good enough.

Lesson learnt: next time I will be bothered, buy the oranges, and make sure I get a real freshly squeezed orange juice!

Just to top it up, I wanted to send a quick email to Hula, to let them know, but I went onto the Hula website, where they clearly state they want feedback, and I could not find an email address to give them the feedback, so it has to go on here...

IN SHORT: Place great, staff great, FRESH OJ IS NOT FRESH OJ!

All right?

I'm just coming to the end of a three-week stay in Edinburgh, in a flat just across the road from Hula. Since I found the place I've been there every day. As have all my compadres.

The smoothies are amazing, the bagels, bacon or smoked salmon, are brilliant, and the cakes are great too.

Does this review read like a piece of GCSE English? Yes? Good. I'm not good at adjectives.

The staff were also brilliant.

Regular morning routine: up, dress, cross street to Hula, banter and buy smoothie, go and do stuff, return to Hula, banter, buy coffee, go off and do stuff, return to Hula, buy Cajun chicken wrap, banter, go and do stuff. Repeat next day.

Thanks for being a regular fixture of a life-affirming three weeks.

Sherpa, thank you for your comment from 2008. I'm glad you enjoyed the smoothies, our fruit smoothies are the core of Hula. I'm the owner of Hula and I am truly sorry that you and your friends had a less than great experience. Let me address both issues: 1. No staff member at Hula is ever employed to offer anything but excellent customer service, and rudeness or trying to fool a customer is completely unacceptable. The individual no longer works at Hula, he lost his job that summer in a similar situation which I was fortunate enough to witness. 2. We now use a delicious dressing on our salads and we no longer use iceburg. Our sidesalad is now a delicious mixed pepper, red onion, cucumber, tomato and olive salad, dressed with a light vinagrette. Thank you again for raising these issues, and for sharing your positive points too, and I hope you will visit Hula again sometime and have a truly great experience.

I would ask any other readers to note that two years have passed since these issues were raised and the issues are resolved.

Lunch here yesterday was very disappointing. Fruit smoothies were great, sandwiches were below average and overpriced, salads were poor - iceberg lettuce and no dressing - when we asked for some it wasn't available, and we were told "it's not traditional in England" !!! (the person asking wasn't British, obviously the member of staff thought he could fool the tourists). The coffee looked good: I'd go back to drink but not to eat.